in 1976 - (Edward) Benjamin Britten,Lord Britten of Aldeburgh, outstanding English composer, dies at Aldeburgh, age 72. He grew up in moderately prosperous circumstances; his father was an orthodontist, his mother an amateur singer. He played the piano and improvised facile tunes; many years later he used these youthful inspirations in a symphonic work which he named Simple Symphony.

In addition to piano, he began taking viola lessons with Audrey Alston. At the age of 13, he was accepted as a pupil in composition by Frank Bridge, whose influence was decisive on Britten's development as a composer. In 1930 he entered the Royal Coll. of Music in London, where he studied piano with Arthur Benjamin and Harold Samuel, and composition with John Ireland until 1933. He progressed rapidly; even his earliest works showed a mature mastery of technique and a fine talent for lyrical expression. His Fantasy Quartet for Oboe and Strings was performed at the Festival of the ISCM in Florence on April 5, 1934. He became associated with the theater and the cinema and began composing background music for films.

In 1936 he met Peter Pears. From 1937 they appeared in joint recitals, remaining intimate as well as professional companions until Britten's death. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Britten went to the U.S.; he returned to England in the spring of 1942; was exempted from military service as a conscientious objector. After the War, he organized the English Opera Group (1947), and in 1948 the Aldeburgh Festival, in collaboration with Eric Crozier and Pears; this Festival became an important cultural institution in England, serving as the venue for the first performances of many of Britten's own works, often under his direction; he also had productions at the Glyndebourne Festival. In his operas, he observed the economic necessity of reducing the orch. contingent to 12 performers, with the piano part serving as a modern version of the Baroque ripieno. This economy of means made it possible for small opera groups and univ. workshops to perform Britten's works; yet he succeeded in creating a rich spectrum of instrumental colors, in an idiom ranging from simple triadic progressions, often in parallel motion, to ultrachromatic dissonant harmonies; on occasion he applied dodecaphonic procedures, with thematic materials based on 12 different notes; however, he never employed the formal design of the 12-tone method of composition.

A sui generis dodecaphonic device is illustrated by the modulatory scheme in Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw, in which each successive scene begins in a different key, with the totality of tonics aggregating to a series of 12 different notes. A characteristic feature in his operas is the inclusion of orch. interludes, which become independent symphonic poems in an impressionistic vein related to the dramatic action of the work. The cries of seagulls in Britten's most popular and musically most striking opera, Peter Grimes, create a fantastic quasi-surrealistic imagery. Britten was equally successful in treating tragic subjects, as in Peter Grimes and Billy Budd, comic subjects, exemplified by his Albert Herring, and mystical evocation, as in his The Turn of the Screw. He was also successful in depicting patriotic subjects, as in Gloriana, composed for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

He possessed a flair for writing music for children, in which he managed to present a degree of sophistication and artistic simplicity without condescension. In short, Britten was an adaptable composer who could perform a given task according to the specific requirements of the occasion. He composed a "realization" of Gay's Beggar's Opera. He also wrote modern "parables" for church performance, and produced a contemporary counterpart of the medieval English miracle play Noye's Fludde. Among his other works is the remarkable War Requiem, a profound tribute to the dead of many wars. In 1952 Britten was made a Companion of Honour, in 1965 he received the Order of Merit, and in 1976 he became the first English composer to be created a life peer, becoming Lord Britten of Aldeburgh. In collaboration with Imogen Hoist, Britten wrote The Story of Music (London, 1958) and The Wonderful World of Music (Garden City, N.Y., 1968; rev. ed., 1970). - Born at Lowestoft, Suffolk, Nov. 22,1913.

in 1976 - Workers at EMI records went on strike, refusing to package the Sex Pistols single 'Anarchy In The UK.'
in 1977 - During a North American tour, Queen appeared at the University Arena, Dayton, Ohio.

in 1979 - U2 appeared at The Hope and Anchor, Islington, London. Misnamed ‘The U2s’, they played to only nine people and the show ended abruptly after The Edge broke a guitar string.

in 1980 - Prince played the first night on his 31 date Dirty Mind North American tour at Shea’s in Buffalo, New York. After being told by his managers he couldn't wear spandex pants without any underwear, Prince began performing in a long trench coat, black high heeled boots and leggings, and bikini brief trunks.

in 1980 - Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones made the announcement of their decision not to re-form Led Zeppelin in the wake of the death of drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham.

in 1981 - Lila McCann (US country music singer) is born.

in 1982 - The Jam were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Beat Surrender', the group's fourth UK No.1 and final single. They split in 1983, and leader Paul Weller formed the Style Council.

in 1982 - 'The John Lennon Collection' started a six-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart.
in 1983 - Tears For Fears kicked off a 13-date UK tour at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre. Tickets £4.

in 1985 - Marcel Boereboom Belgian musicologist, dies at 83.
in 1987 - Madonna filed for divorce from actor Sean Penn and then changed her mind a week later.

in 1988 - Roy Orbison played his final ever gig when he appeared in Cleveland, Ohio. Orbison died of a heart attack two days later.

in 1989 - Lenny Kravitz made his UK live debut at London's Borderline Club.

in 1993 - Frank Zappa, (actually, Francis Vincent), seeded American rock artist, dies at Los Angeles.
The family moved to Calif. From his school days, he played guitar and organized groups with weird names such as The Omens and Captain Glasspack and His Magic Mufflers. In 1960 he composed the sound track for the film The World's Greatest Sinner, and in 1963 he wrote another sound track, Run Home Slow.

In 1965he joined the rhythm-and blues band The Soul Giants; he soon took it under his own aegis and thought up for it the surrealist logo The Mothers of Invention. His recording of it, and another album, Freak Out!, became underground hits; along with We're Only in It for the Money and Cruising with Ruben and The Jets, these works constituted the earliest "concept" albums, touching every nerve in a gradually decivilized Calif. life-style-rebellious, anarchistic, incomprehensible, and yet tantalizing.

The band became a mixed-media celebration of total artistic, political, and social opposition to the Establishment, the ingredients of their final album, Mothermania. Moving farther afield, Zappa produced a video-movie, 200 Motels, glorifying itinerant sex activities. He became a cult figure, and as such suffered the penalty of violent adulation. Playing in London in 1971, he was painfully injured when a besotted fan pushed him off the stage. Similar assaults forced Zappa to hire an athletic bodyguard for protection.

In 1982 his planned appearance in Palermo, Sicily, the birthplace of his parents, had to be cancelled because the mob rioted in anticipation of the event. He deliberately confronted the most cherished social and emotional sentiments by putting on such songs as Broken Hearts Are for *******s, and his release Jewish Princess offended, mistakenly, the sensitivity of American Jews. His production Joe's Garage contained Zappa's favorite scatological materials, and he went on analyzing and ridiculing urinary functions in such numbers as Why Does It Hurt When I Pee. He managed to upset the members of his own faith in the number titled Catholic Girls. His Hot Rats, a jazz-rock release, included the famous Willie the Pimp,and exploited the natural revulsion to unclean animals.

In 1980 he produced the film Baby Snakes, which shocked even the most impervious senses. He declared in an interview that classical music is only "for old ladies and faggots," but he astounded the musical community when he proclaimed his total adoration of the music of Edgar Varese and gave a lecture on Varese in N.Y. Somehow, without formal study, he managed to absorb the essence of Varese's difficult music. This process led Zappa to produce truly astonishing full orch. scores reveling in artful dissonant counterpoint, Bob in Dacron and Sad Jane and Mo' 'n Herb's Vacation, and the cataclysmic Penis Dimension for chorus, soloists, and orch., with a text so anatomically precise that it could not be performed for any Englishspeaking audience.

An accounting of Zappa's scatological and sexological proclivities stands in remarkable contrast to his unimpeachable private life and total abstention from alcohol and narcotic drugs. An unexpected reflection of Zappa's own popularity was the emergence of his adolescent daughter, curiously named Moon Unit, as a voice-over speaker on his hit Valley Girls, in which she used the vocabulary of growing womanhood of the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, with such locutions as "Crody to the Max" (repellent) and "Barfs Me Out" (disgusting).

His son, Dweezil Zappa, is also a musician; his first album, Haoin'a Bad Day,was modestly successful. In 1985 Zappa became an outspoken opponent of the activities of the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center), an organization comprised largely of wives of Ll.S. Senators who accused the recording industry of exposing the youth of America to "sex, violence, and the glorification of drugs and alcohol." Their demands to the RIAA (Recording Industry Assn. of America) included the labeling of record albums to indicate lyric content.

Zappa voiced his opinions in no uncertain terms, first in an open letter published in Cashbox, and then in one direct to President Reagan; finally, on Sept. 19, 1985, he appeared at the first of a series of highly publicized hearings involving the Senate Commerce, Technology and Transporation Committee, the PMRC, and the RIAA, where he delivered a statement to Congress which began "The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children and promises to keep the courts busy for years, dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design." Audio excerpts from these hearings can be heard, in original and Synclavier-manipulated forms, on his album Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention. Later recordings that made extensive use of the Synclavier included Francesco Zappa and Jazz From Hell. With P. Occhiogrosso, he published an unrestrained autobiographical, The Real Frank Zappa Book (N.Y., London, Toronto, Sydney, and Tokyo, 1988), rich in undeleted scatalogical expletives. - Born at Baltimore, Dec. 21, 1940.

in 1999 - Rapper Jay-Z was released on $50,000 bail, after being accused of attacking Lance Rivera when a fight broke out at a party for rapper Q-Tip at a Manhattan Club. Police declined to say what caused the dispute.

in 2002 - Bernie Dwyer dies at age 62. UK drummer, founder member of Freddie & the Dreamers; although the band were grouped as a part of the Merseybeat sound phenomenon that The Beatles exploded around the world in the wake of Beatlemania, they came from Manchester, and were the first such non-Liverpool, non-Brian Epstein-managed band to break through in the UK. Their most famous hits were "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody", "I'm Telling You Now", "You Were Made For Me", and "I Understand" .

in 2004 - Teo Peter dies at age 50. Romanian rock musician born in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, and bass player for rock band Compact formed in 1977 (Sadly Teo died while traveling in a taxi which was hit by a drunk driver, U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Christopher Van Goethem serving as a Marine Security Guard at the American embassy in Bucharest).

in 2004 - Elena Souliotis dies at age 61. Greece operatic soprano initially hailed as "the next Callas", her best known role is Abigaille in Verdi's opera Nabucco. Although her opera recordings were best sellers and she quickly achieved a busy career, unwisely, she took on certain demanding roles too early, and damaged her voice by denying it the time it needed to develop and strengthen by natural stages. After an absence from the stage that lasted several years, she began a second career in comprimario roles beginning in 1979, mostly in Russian operas.

in 2005 - Gloria Lasso (Rosa María Coscolin) dies at age 83. Spanish-born singer, long based in France. She found fame and success in the 1950s and 1960s, with songs such as Amour, Castagnettes et Tango, Etranger au Paradis (a French version of Stranger in Paradise), Buenas Noches Mi Amor, and Bon Voyage.

in 2007 - Pimp C (Chad Butler) dies at age 33. American rap artist, co-founder of the "Dirty South" style rap group UGK, and also co-owner of Trill Entertainment along with bandmate "Bun B". Born in Port Arthur, TX, his father played trumpet professionally with Solomon Burke, Chad studied classical music while in high school, and received a Division I rating on a tenor solo at a University Interscholastic League choir competition. He developed an interest in hip-hop when a friend of his gave him a Run-DMC album, after which he and his best friend Bernard "Bun B" Freeman, formed the rap group Underground Kingz aka UGK. Their 3rd album, Ridin' Dirty, reached No.2 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. January 2002 Chad was sentenced to eight years in prison after violating probation by ignoring the community service sentence he had received from an earlier aggravated gun assault charge. He was released in 2005 and his 1st solo album "Pimpalation" appeared in the summer of 2006. Bun B dedicated the final UGK album, UGK 4 Life, to Pimp C's memory.

in 2008 - Richard Van Allan CBE dies at age 73. British operatic bass singer; he sang varied repertoire at Covent Garden, English National Opera, and numerous important houses worldwide. With his distinctive profile and memorable stage presence, he made a powerful impression in many roles, from Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, to Gilbert & Sullivan. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001, and his last performance was as Folz in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival.

in 2000 - Mary Virginia Curtis Verna dies at age 88. American operatic soprano, born in Salem, US, Mary is particularly associated with the Italian repertory and famed in the 50s and ’60s for stepping into the roles of ailing, or otherwise indisposed divas, often on only a few hours’ notice. She made her stage debut at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, as Desdemona, in 1949. She sang widely in Italy, as Maria Curtis Verna, and made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera and the Munich State Opera. She made her American debut in Philadelphia, in 1952, and the same year at the San Francisco Opera, as Aida. She made her debut at the New York City Opera, as Donna Anna, in 1954, and at the Metropolitan Opera, as Leonora in Il trovatore, in 1957. She can be heard in a few Cetra recordings; Don Giovanni, opposite Giuseppe Taddei, Italo Tajo, Cesare Valletti, Un ballo in maschera, opposite Ferruccio Tagliavini and Giuseppe Valdengo, Aida, opposite Franco Corelli, Miriam Pirazzini, Giangiacomo Guelfi.

in 2002 - Whitney Houston admitted in an US TV interview that drink and drugs nearly killed her. Bobby Brown's missus also admitted to being addicted to sex. She said her business is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and got into the lifestyle after missing out on partying when her career kicked off aged 18.

in 2005 - David Gray kicked of a 10-date UK tour at Manchester Arena finishing at The Brixton Academy in London on the 15th.

in 2005 - Pussycat Dolls were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Stickwitu' The Californian girls second No.1.

in 2006 - Yahoo revealed that Britney Spears was the most searched for term of 2006 with more online searches done about Spears than any other topic or person. Female celebrities dominated the top 10 overall search list, with Shakira at number three, Jessica Simpson at number four and Paris Hilton at number five.

in 2009 - William 'Liam' Clancy dies at age 74. Irish singer, born in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. He began singing with his brothers at fund-raising events for the Cherry Lane Theatre and the Guthrie benefits. They relocated to New York in 1956, where a record breaking 16 minute long performance on The Ed Sullivan Show launched the group into stardom. The quartet recorded numerous albums for Columbia Records and enjoyed great success during the '60s folk revival. In these days, Liam was a close friend of Bob Dylan when they both were going out with two sisters in New York, also he performed live for President John F. Kennedy and played guitar in addition to singing and recorded several solo albums. In 1975 he was booked to play a festival in Cleveland, Ohio, where Tommy Makem was also playing. The two played a set together and formed Makem and Clancy, performing in numerous concerts and recording several albums as a duo, until 1988. Now back in Ireland, Liam re-joined the Clancy Brothers in 1996, which then included his brothers, Paddy, Bobby, and O'Connell, to record the album, "Older But No Wiser" and embark on a farewell tour. He continued to touring with his son, Donal, and O'Connell, as Clancy, O'Connell & Clancy. In 2006 Irish Television profiled Liam Clancy in a two hour documentary called "The Legend of Liam Clancy." In February 2007 the documentary won the award for best series at the Irish Film & Television Academy awards in Dublin.

in 2011 - Hubert Sumlin dies at age 80. American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, born in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing was characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic suspensions". He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 2008; nominated for four Grammy Awards:- in 1999 for the album Tribute to Howlin' Wolf with Henry Gray, Calvin Jones, Sam Lay, and Colin Linden, in 2000 for Legends with Pinetop Perkins, in 2006 for his solo project About Them Shoes and he won multiple Blues Music Awards.(Hubert sadly died from a heart failure) - Born November 16th 1931.

in 2011 - RJ Rosales/Roseo José Rosales dies at age 37. Filipino-born Australian singer, actor, musical theatre performer and TV presenter. Born in Manila, his family migrated to Sydney, Australia when he was 13. RJ started his professional career as part of the ensemble of the original Australian production of Miss Saigon in 1996. In 1998 he moved to Singapore where his theatre credits include leading roles in Chang and Eng - the Musical, The Student Prince, Man of Letters, Cabaret, and Forbidden City. It was his regular stint in ASAP, the No.1 musical variety show in the Philippines that made him a household name in the country. As well as making numerous Singapore TV appearances, he also had a successful solo singing career and held live concerts in the USA, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Thailand. RJ returned to Australia in 2008 in the revived production of Sir Cameron Mackintosh's musical Miss Saigon, in which he portrays Thuy, for which he was nominated for the Helpmann Awards Best Supporting Actor in a Musical (details about his death have not yet been confirmed) - Born March 24th 1974.

in 1663 - Severo Bonini, Italian composer, organist, and writer on music, died at Florence, age 80. He received the habit of the Vallombrosan Benedictines in 1595 and professed in 1598. He then studied theology and other subjects at the University at Passignano; subsequently resided in an abbey in Florence. In 1611 he became organist at the abbey of S. Trinita, and in 1613 he assumed a similar position at S. Mercuriale in Forli. In 1615 he was made camarlingo at the abbey of S. Michele in Forcole, Pistoia, and in 1619 at S. Mercuriale in Forli. In 1623 he became curate at S. Martino in Strada, where he remained until 1637. In 1640 he was named organist and maestro di cappella at S. Trinita, posts he retained until his death. He wrote a valuable treatise on the beginnings of monody and opera, Discorsi e regole sovra la musica et il contrappunto. - Born at Florence, Dec. 23, 1582.

in 1697 - Carlo Arrigoni, Italian composer, is born at Florence. He left Italy as a young man. In 1732 he was invited to London by a group favorable to Italian composers in opposition to Handel, where his opera Fernando was premiered on Feb. 5, 1734. His oratorio Esther was first performed in Vienna in 1738, and then his operas Sirbace and Scipione nelle Spagne in Florence in 1739. He also published 10 Cantate da camera (London, 1732). - Died at Florence, Aug. 19, 1744.

in 1790 - Giuseppe Ciccimarra, admired Italian tenor and teacher, is born at Altamura. He became a principal member of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where he gained notable distinction for his roles in Rossini's operas. He created Rossini's lago (1816), Goffredo in Arminda (1817), Aronne in Mose (1818), Ernesto in Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818), Pilade in Erminione (1819), and Condulmiero in Maometto II (1820). After his retirement in 1826, he went to Vienna as a teacher of voice and piano. Among his pupils were Clara Heinefetter, Sophie Loewe, Joseph Staudigl, and Joseph Tichatschek. - Died at Venice, Dec. 5,1836.

in 1791 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies at age 35.
Austrian composer; one of the heavyweights of classical music, generally placed in the top rank of composers along with Beethoven and Bach. Many consider Mozart to be the greatest composer of all time. His more than 600 compositions include works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music, he is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers

in 1844 - Sir (John) Frederick Bridge, English organist, conductor, and composer, brother of Joseph (Cox) Bridge; is born at Oldbury, near Birmingham. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to John Hopkins, organist of Rochester
Cathedral, and later studied under John Goss. He was principal organist at Westminster Abbey (1882-1918), and took the degree of D.Mus. at Oxford in 1874 with his oratorio Mount Moriah. He then taught harmony and organ at various music schools, including the Royal College of Music (from 1883). He was conductor of the Highbury Philharmonic Society (1878-86), the Madrigal Society and the Royal Choral Society (1896-1922); also served as chairman of Trinity College of Music. He was knighted in 1897. He published primers on counterpoint, canon, organ accompaniment, and other subjects; also A Course of Harmony (with Sawyer; 1899), Samuel Pepys, Lover of Music (1903), an autobiography, A Westminster Pilgrim (1918), 12 Good Musicians from John Bull to Henry Purcell (1920), The Old Cryes of London (1921), and Shakespearean Music in the Plays and Early Operas (1923); also edited selected motets of Orlando Gibbons (1907). - Died at London, March 18, 1924.

in 1895 - Henriette (Hilda) Bosmans, Dutch pianist and composer; is born at Amsterdam, Dec. 5, 1895. She studied piano with her mother at the Amsterdam Conservatory and embarked on a career as a pianist. In 1927 she took lessons in composition with Pijper. In her music, she cultivated an agreeable neoClassical idiom, with coloristic eclat, suggesting the techniques and devices of French Impressionism. She wrote many songs to texts by French poets. - Died at Amsterdam, July 2, 1952.

in 1899 - Thomas Ludvigsen Beck, Norwegian organist, choral conductor, teacher, and composer, is born at Horten. He studied piano, organ, and composition at the Oslo Conservatory and theory in Leipzig. From 1930 he was active as an organist, choral conductor, and teacher in Oslo. He composed several orchestral pieces, many cantatas, choruses, songs, and film music. - Died at Oslo, Sept. 9, 1963.

in 1903 - Johannes Heesters (Dutch singer and actor) is born..as of 2011 still working at 108!!) Shortly after this was posted he passed away on 24 December 2011.Video Note: in this video he is 107.

Johan Marius Nicolaas "Johannes" Heesters (5 December 1903 – 24 December 2011) was a Dutch actor, singer, and entertainer with a career dating back to 1921. Active almost exclusively in the German-speaking world from the mid-1930s, he was a controversial figure for his actions during the Second World War and his success in Nazi Germany. Heesters was considered one of the oldest stage performers in history.

Heesters was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands, the youngest of four sons. His father Jacobus Heesters (1865–1946) was a salesman and his mother Geertruida Jacoba van den Heuvel (1866–1951), a homemaker.

Heesters was fluent in German from a very early age having lived for several years in the household of a German great uncle from Bavaria. Heesters decided to become an actor and a singer at the age of sixteen and began vocal training. Heesters specialized in Viennese operetta very early in his career, and made his Viennese stage debut in 1934 in Carl Millöcker's Der Bettelstudent (The Beggar Student).

Aged 31, Heesters permanently moved to Germany with his wife and daughters in 1935. During his time there, he performed for Adolf Hitler and visited the Dachau concentration camp which made him a controversial figure for many Dutch. Joseph Goebbels placed Heesters on the Gottbegnadeten list as an artist considered crucial to Nazi culture.

Heesters is known to have funded the German war machine by donating money to the weapons industry. While he became a very controversial figure in the late 1970s, Heesters always denied these accusations despite reliable evidence.

Heesters befriended several high-ranking Nazi-officials and SS-officers. Mr. "Jopie" also performed regularly for people such as Hitler and Goering, with the former being known to have been an avid admirer of his acting skills. Throughout the war Heesters continued to perform for German soldiers in camps and barracks. He always denied having visited concentration camps, although he did have knowledge of their existence.

According to German author Volker Kühn, Heesters did in fact perform for the SS in Dachau concentration camp. For this claim he uses as evidence the testimony of Dachau inmate Viktor Matejka who worked for the SS and told Kühn he pulled the curtain when Heesters performed in 1941. According to German writer Jürgen Trimborn however, the interview with Matejka may not be reliable as it occurred some fifty years after the performance was said to have taken place. In December 2009, Heesters lost his libel suit against Kühn. While acknowledging having visited the camp, Heesters denied having performed as entertainment for the SS troops. In its ruling, the German court did not find that Kühn's allegations were true, but rather that too much time had passed for an accurate determination of fact to be made.

Heesters' signature tune was Count Danilo Danilovitch's entrance song "Da geh' ich ins Maxim" from Franz Lehár's Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow). He met Hitler several times and was reportedly Hitler's favorite actor in the role of Danilo.

Heesters worked extensively for UFA until almost the end of the Second World War (his last wartime movie being Die Fledermaus, produced in 1945) and easily made the transition from the Nazi-controlled cultural scene to post-war Germany and Austria, appearing again in a number of films. These included Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach and the 1957 version of Viktor und Viktoria. Heesters stopped making movies around 1960 to concentrate on stage and television appearances and on producing records.

In later years Heesters spoke fondly of Hitler as a person, but condemned his political stance. In the 1990s, he and his wife toured Germany and Austria with Curth Flatow's play Ein gesegnetes Alter (A Blessed Age), which was also televised in 1996. On 5 December 2003, he celebrated his 100th birthday with a television special Eine Legende wird 100 (A legend turns 100) on the ARD television channel.

On his 100th birthday Heesters received the title "Kammersänger". In December 2004, aged 101, Heesters appeared in Stuttgart at the Komödie im Marquardt theatre in a show commissioned on the occasion of his 100th birthday, Heesters – eine musikalische Hommage. In 2005 aged 102 he was featured as a soloist in a major concert tour with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg under the direction of Scott Lawton.

On 5 December 2006 Heesters celebrated his 103rd birthday with a concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus. On 5 December 2007 he celebrated his 104th birthday with a concert at the Admiralspalast, Berlin, and in February 2008 he performed in his home country for the first time in four decades amidst protests against his Nazi associations.

Heesters apologised for calling Adolf Hitler a "good chap" on the popular German TV show Wetten, dass..? on Saturday, 13 December 2008, aged 105. He said that he had said something stupid and horrible and asked for forgiveness. In addition, German media suggested that he had failed to understand the show's satirical nature.

Heesters became less active in his last years and played smaller roles, as he began to lose his eyesight due to macular degeneration and could not perform on stage for long periods of times. Unable to read a teleprompter, he had to memorize his lines before a show.

Heesters had two daughters by his first wife Louisa Ghijs, whom he married in 1930. After her death in 1985, he remarried in 1992; his second wife, Simone Rethel (born 1949), is a German actress, painter, and photographer. His younger daughter Nicole Heesters is a well-known actress in the German-speaking world, as is his granddaughter Saskia Fischer.

In December 2010, the 107-year-old Heesters announced that he had quit smoking for his then 61-year-old wife: "She should have me as long as possible."

On 1 January 2008, he fell down some stairs in his holiday house in Tyrol and broke two ribs.

On 29 November 2011, he suddenly fell ill, developing a fever, and was rushed into hospital. He was operated on to fit a heart pacemaker and following a good recovery, was allowed home less than a week later, on 4 December, in time to spend his 108th birthday the next day with family. He did not feel strong enough to make the planned stage appearance to sing in celebration of his birthday and also had missed the premiere of his latest film, Ten. Due to a relapse in his condition, on 17 December he was readmitted to hospital, where he subsequently suffered a stroke, dying on Christmas Eve 2011. He is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

in 1934 - Art(hur D.) Davis, jazz bassist, is born at Harrisburg, Pa. He initially studied piano and tuba, winning a national competition on the latter before starting on bass in 1951. A prodigious talent, he was rated the top bass and tuba player for two years at William Penn H'S. He led his own quintet that, by 1956, had been featured on radio, TV, and at major colleges and clubs throughout the Pa. area. At this time, he worked in the Harrisburg Symphony, studied at the Curtis Inst., and was offered scholarships to three of the leading music conservatories-the Eastman, Juilliard, and Manhattan schools.

He selected the latter two and by 1958 was also working around N.Y.He studied with Anselme Fortier, and learned by watching and listening to Oscar Pettiford. He played with Max Roach in 1958-59. The group debuted at the Newport festival on July 6,1958. Davis had to play with an injured plucking finger-another musician had accidentally shut the car door on it-and his bandage is clearly visible in the photographs on the resulting live album. He toured Europe with Dizzy Gillespie from 1959 through early 1961, then worked with Lena Horne for a month in London.

By the early 1960s had symphonic work in N.Y.C., and extensive employment in theatres, studios, and with singers and jazz groups. He played bass with Coltrane, usually in tandem with Reggie Workman, intermittently from May through about October 1961, and on some later occasions including the 1965 recordings the Quartet Plays and Ascension. (In interviews, Coltrane said that Davis was his first-choice for bass player with his quartet, but Davis was often unavailable when Coltrane offered him the position.)

He was a member of the NBC, CBS, and Westinghouse television orchestras from 1962 through 1970, breaking the race barrier, and was prominently featured on the Merv Griffin show in the late 1960s. In 1969, after having been turned down for the N.Y. Philharmonic four times, he (along with cellist Earl Madison) brought a historic lawsuit against the orchestra and its conductor Leonard Bernstein for racial discrimination.

After 15 months the N.Y. Commission on Human Rights maintained that discrimination had not been proved for permanent jobs (which was challenged by Davis, who maintained that auditions should be held behind a screen), but that the orchestra had discriminated by avoiding black artists when short-term and substitute musicians were needed. From around 1970 he was primarily involved in teaching.

He taught at Manhattan Community College from 1971 to 1973. He earned a B.A. from Hunter College in 1972, M.A. degrees from C.U.N.Y. and N.Y.U. in music and psychology in 1976, and a doctorate in psychology in 1981. Moving to the L.A. area in the early 1980s, Davis has since worked as a psychologist, while continuing with his first profession, doing studio sessions, playing in a duo with Hilton Ruiz (1985 and 1986), and recording as a leader (1984 and 1995). He performed in Brooklyn in July 1997 and was interviewed on WKCR radio prior to the concert. - Died at Long Beach, CA, 29 July, 2007.

in 1946 - Jose (Maria) Carreras, celebrated Catalan Spanish tenor, is born at Barcelona.
He studied with Jaime Puig at the Barcelona Cons, before completing his training with Juan Ruax. In 1970 he made his operatic debut as Flavio in Norma in Barcelona, and later that year appeared as Gennaro opposite Caballe's Lucrezia Borgia. In 1971 he won the Verdi Competition in Parma, where he made his Italian debut as Rodolfo. He also made his first appearance in London that year singing Leicester in a concert performance of Maria Stuarda. On March 15, 1972, he made his U.S. debut as Pinkerton at the N.Y.C. Opera, where he remained on the roster until 1975.

In 1973 he sang for the first time at the San Francisco Opera as Rodolfo. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. on Nov. 18,1974, as Cavaradossi, and subsequently returned there regularly. In 1975 he sang for the first time at Milan's La Scala as Riccardo. In 1976 he made his first appearances at the Salzburg Festival (as Don Carlos) and at the Chicago Lyric Opera (as Riccardo). In addition to his engagements with principal opera houses of the world, Carreras pursued a notably successful career as a concert artist. However, in 1987 he was stricken with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Following exhaustive medical treatment, he was able to resume his career in 1988 when he appeared at a special Barcelona outdoor concert before an audience of 150,000 admirers. That same year he founded the Jose Carreras Leukemia Foundation in Barcelona.

In 1989 he appeared in recitals in Seattle and N.Y., and also returned to the operatic stage as Jason in Cherubini's Medea in Merida, Spain. On Sept. 24, 1989, he created the title role in Balada's Cristobal Colon in Barcelona. On July 7,1990, he appeared in a spectacular concert with fellow tenors Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti in Rome, with Zubin Mehta conducting. The event was telecast live to the world and subsequently became a best-selling video and compact disc. The "three tenors” subsequently staged such extravaganzas throughout the world. In 1998 he sang Wolf-Ferrari's Sly in Zurich, a role he reprised at the Washington (D.C.) Opera in 1999 in his first U.S. stage appearance in 12 years. His autobiography was published as Singen mil der Seek (Munich, 1989; Eng. tr., 1991, as Singing from the Soul). The title aptly describes his approach not only to singing but to living the life of one of the world's favorite tenors.

in 1953 - Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno dies at age 42. Mexican singer, actor; considered one of the most popular Mexican singers and actors of all time. He started his career singing operatic parts on the radio in 1931 in Mexico City. In 1936 he signed with NBC for a TV program with Cuban and Mexican musicians. He returned to Mexico in 1937 to act in the film "La Madrina Del Diablo" ("The Devil's Godmother") after which in 1938 he starred in "La Valentina" with Elisa Christy and then in "Juntos Pero No Revueltos" ("Together But Not Mixed"). After working in Havana and Hollywood he was called to act in "¡Ay Jalisco, No Te Rajes!" ("Hey Jalisco, Don't Back Down!") which made him an international Latin star and helped formulate the charro film genre

in 1960 - Elvis Presley started a ten-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 'G.I. Blues'. His fifth US No.1 album.

in 1960 - Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested for pinning a condom to a brick wall and then igniting it. The two were told to leave Germany and The Beatles returned home, discouraged.

in 1961 - Ray Charles was arrested in an Indianapolis hotel and charged with possession of drugs.

in 1962 - Jose Cura, Argentine tenor, conductor, and composer, is born at Rosario.
He began to take lessons in voice and guitar when he was 12. At 15, he made his debut as a conductor at an open-air choral concert in Rosario. After training in composition at the University of Rosario and in voice at the singing school at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aries, he pursued vocal studies with Horacio Amauri.

In 1991 he went to Italy and completed his vocal training with Vittorio Terranova. On Feb. 1, 1992, he made his operatic debut as the Father in Henze's Pollicino in Verona. In 1993 he sang Jean in Bibalo's Miss Julie in Trieste and Albert Gregor in The Makropoulos Affairin Turin.

In 1994 he won a prize in the Operalia Competition and made his U.S. debut as Loris in Fedora at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. In 1995 he was engaged as Paolo in Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini in Palermo, as Stiffelio at London's Covent Garden, and as Ismaele in Nabucco at the Opera de la Bastille in Paris. He returned to Covent Garden in 1996 as Samson and as Cavaradossi, and also sang Osaka in Mascagni's Iris in Rome, the title role in II corsaro in Turin, and Pollione in Los Angeles.

In 1997he portrayed Enzo in LaGioconda at Milan's La Scala, Turiddu in Bologna, and Otello and Samson in Turin. He sang Radames in the reopening of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in 1998, and also appeared as Des Grieux at La Scala and as Samson at the Washington (D.C.) Opera. In 1999 he appeared as both a singer and a conductor at London's Royal Festival Hall. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Turiddu on Sept. 26, 1999. Cura was engaged to sing Don Carlos in Zurich and Turiddu at Covent Garden in 2001. Among his compositions are a Requiem (1984), a Stabat Mater (1989), and various songs.

in 1963 - Karl Amadeus Hartmann dies at age 58. German composer, some have lauded him as the greatest German symphonist of the 20th century, although he is now largely overlooked, particularly in English-speaking countries. He voluntarily withdrew completely from musical life in Germany during the Nazi era, and refused to allow his works to be played there. An early symphonic poem, Miserae first performed in Prague, 1935, was condemned by the Nazi regime; but his work continued to be performed, and his fame grew, abroad. Beginning in November 1945, the concerts reintroduced the German public to 20th-century repertoire which had been banned since 1933 under National Socialist aesthetic policy. Karl provided a platform for the music of the young composers who came to the fore in the late 1940s and early 1950s, helping to establish such figures as Hans Werner Henze, Luigi Nono, Luigi Dallapiccola, Carl Orff, Iannis Xenakis, Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and many others. Hartmann also involved sculptors and artists such as Jean Cocteau, Le Corbusier, and Joan Miró in exhibitions at Musica Viva.

in 1964 - Lorne Greene star of the NBC TV show 'Bonanza' was at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Ringo', making him the second Canadian (after Paul Anka) to have a US No.1 single. The song was a No.22 hit in the UK.

in 1965 - The Beatles played their last ever show in their hometown of Liverpool when they appeared at The Liverpool Empire during the group's final UK tour. Only 5,100 tickets were available, but there were 40,000 applications for tickets. The group also had the UK No.1 single with 'We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper.'

in 1965 - The Rolling Stones played two shows at the Convention Hall, San Diego, California on the last night of a 37-date North American tour.

in 1967 - The last night of a package tour arrived at 'Green's Playhouse, Glasgow, featuring Pink Floyd, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Move and Amen Corner.

in 1968 - The release of The Rolling Stones’ new album Beggar’s Banquet, was celebrated at a party in London. A food fight with custard pies was the highlight of the event that went on without an ill Keith Richards. The original cover for the LP was in the form of a plain white invitation, but was later changed.

in 1976 - Music weekly NME reviewed the Sex Pistols debut single 'Anarchy In The UK' saying "Johnny Rotten sings flat, the song is laughably naive, and the overall feeling is of a third-rate Who imitation."

in 1977 - Rahsaan Roland Kirk (Ronald Theodore Kirk) dies at age 42. American jazz saxaphonist, composer and multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments, born in Columbus, Ohio, but felt compelled by a dream to transpose two letters in his first name to make Roland. He became blind at an early age as a result of poor medical treatment. In 1970, after hearing it in a dream, he added "Rahsaan" to his name. Preferring to lead his own bands, he rarely performed as a sideman, although he did record with arranger Quincy Jones and drummer Roy Haynes and had notable stints with bassist Charles Mingus. One of his best-known recorded performances is the lead flute and solo on Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova", a 1964 hit song repopularized in the Austin Powers films

in 1987 - Fat Larry James, drummer, singer and leader of Fat Larry’s Band died of a heart attack aged 38. Scored the 1982 UK No.2 single 'Zoom'. The opening drum break from Down On The Avenue, from the band's first album, Feel It has been sampled by N.W.A. Ice-T, Jungle Brothers and Run-D.M.C.

in 1987 - Belinda Carlisle went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth', the ex Go-Go's member first solo No.1, also a No.1 hit in the UK. The promotional video was directed by Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton and features an appearance of Carlisle's husband Morgan Mason.

in 1987 - The Jesus And Mary Chain were banned from appearing on a US music TV show after complaints of blasphemy when the group's name was flashed across the screen. The CBS show asked the band to be called JANC but the group didn't agree.

in 1987 - Fat Larry James dies at age 38. American drummer and vocalist of Fat Larry's Band; the band's biggest hits were "Act Like You Know", which later appeared on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and "Zoom", which hit number two in the UK singles chart. They had two other major hits in the UK: "Center City" with lead vocals by Grant and "Boogie Town". His opening drum break from "Down On The Avenue", has been sampled by many hip-hop artists, including NWA, Ice T, Jungle Brothers, and Run-DMC

in 1987 - Molly O'Day (LaVerne Williamson) dies at age 64. American C&W, gospel singer, banjo; pioneering vocalist whose soulful, gut-wrenching performances helped redefine the role of the female country solo artist, whose C&W career was relatively brief, but her lasting influence has proven massive. Staring out in 1939 when she was hired to perform in a radio band: Ervin Staggs and His Radio Ramblers at WCHS, Charleston, West Virginia.She also joined the Radio Ramblers as a vocalist under the pseudonym Mountain Fern and worked with a banjoist called Murphy McClees and changed her name to Dixie Lee. She signed recording contract with Columbia Records and Molly O'Day and her band The Cumberland Mountain Folks made their first recordings on December 16th 1946 (sadly lost his battle with cancer)

in 1989 - Kwon Yuri (South Korean singer) is born.

in 1989 - John Pritchard CBE dies at age 68. English conductor, known for his interpretations of Mozart operas and his support of contemporary music. He joined the music staff of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in '47 as chorus master in '49. He remained associated with Glyndebourne for most of his career, as conductor, music counsellor and musical director. As well as this he appeared worldwide from the Far East to both American contenants to Europe with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Opera Covent Garden,Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Vienna State Opera, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Cologne Opera, the Théâtre de la Monnaie, and the San Francisco Opera to mention a few. John was appointed CBE in 1962 and knighted in 1983. The prestigious Shakespeare prize in Hamburg, was awarded him in 1975.

in 1992 - Ice Cube went to No.1 on the US album chart with 'The Predator'.

in 1992 - Whitney Houston started a ten-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'I Will Always Love You'. The longest ever run at No.1 for a female artist the Dolly Parton penned song was taken from the Bodyguard soundtrack.

in 1993 - Co-founder of Gin Blossoms Doug Hopkins died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds age 32. The guitarist and songwriter was in a detox unit of Phoenix's St. Luke's Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona when he snuck out and bought a .38 caliber pistol. The next day Hopkins committed suicide.

in 1993 - Doug Hopkins dies at age 32. American lead guitarist; he co-founded the Gin Blossoms, a popular modern rock band of the early 1990s. His writing credits included the hits "Hey Jealousy," "Found Out About You," "Hold Me Down," and "Lost Horizons." but he had to quit the band due to his depression and drinking. He started another band, The Chimeras, with brothers Lawrence and Mark Zubia. His role in the band came to an abrupt end during a show one night, when he just quit. It would be the last band he ever played with in public as a member, he was too tormented with bad depression. (self-inflicted gun shot).

in 1998 - R. Kelly started a six week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'I'm Your Angel', featuring Celine Dion. A No.3 hit in the UK.

in 1999 - Korn were at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘Issues’ the bands second US No.1.
in 2004 - Snoop Dogg was at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Drop It Like It's Hit.'

in 2004 - Band Aid 20 started a four week at No.1 on the UK singles chart with a new version of 'Do They Know It’s Christmas.' The third time the song had reached No.1. The new version featured, Joss Stone, Busted, Chris Martin, Bono, Justin Hawkins, Dizzee Rascal, Tom Chaplin, Ms Dynamite, Beverly Knight, Will Young, Jamelia, Fran Healy, Sugababes, Dido and Robbie Williams.

in 2004 - U2 started a two week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb', the bands ninth UK No.1 album. The band also went to No.1 on the US album chart giving them their sixth US No.1 album.

in 2006 - Beatles lyrics handwritten by Sir Paul McCartney to an early version of Maxwell's Silver Hammer sold for $192,000 (£97,000) at an auction in New York. A guitar owned by Jimi Hendrix fetched $168,000 (£85,000), a notebook containing lyrics written by Bob Marley, sold for $72,000 (£36,445) and a poem penned by Doors frontman Jim Morrison made $49,000 (£25,500) at the Christie's sale.

in 2007 - US rapper Pimp C (Chad Butler) was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel room, aged 33. Pimp C had worked with Jay-Z and Dizzee Rascal.

in 2007 - Robbie Williams apologised to Nigel Martin-Smith the ex-manager of Take That and agreed to pay undisclosed damages over an allegation he made about him in a song. In the lyrics of ‘The 90s’ Williams had suggested that Nigel Martin-Smith had stolen funds from the band.

in 2007 - Andrew Imbrie dies at age 86. American composer of contemporary classical music; in 1937, he studied briefly in Paris, before returning to America to attend Princeton University receiving his undergraduate degree in 1942. Next he went to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received an M.A. in Music in 1947. After which he taught at Berkeley from 1949 until his retirement in 1991. In addition to his principal teaching job at Berkeley, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Brandeis University, Northwestern University, New York University, the University of Alabama, and Harvard University, and had a regular teaching post at the San Francisco Conservatory. His notable students included Larry Austin and Neil Rolnick. Andrew wrote both vocal and instrumental music; he wrote two operas, Three Against Christmas -1960, and Angle of Repose -1976, as well as numerous orchestral, chamber, choral, and solo vocal compositions. The Requiem was a memorial to his son John, who died young.

in 2007 - Karlheinz Stockhausen dies at age 79. German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music". He is known for his ground-breaking work in electronic music, aleatory in serial composition, and musical. Some of his notable compositions include the series of nineteen Klavierstücke (Piano Pieces), Kontra-Punkte for ten instruments, the electronic /musique-concrète Gesang der Jünglinge, Gruppen for three orchestras, the percussion solo Zyklus, Kontakte, the cantata Momente, the live-electronic Mikrophonie I, Hymnen, Stimmung for six vocalists, Aus den sieben Tagen, Mantra for two pianos and electronics, Tierkreis, Inori for soloists and orchestra, and the gigantic opera cycle Licht

in 2008 - Anca Parghel dies at age 51). Romanian singer, composer, arranger, teacher, bandleader and conductor. She had a 4 octaves voice range and sang in different styles and genres of music including jazz, pop, classical, latin, French music, Italian music & Romanian folklore. She has recorded and performed with many greats including Billy Hart, Archie Shepp, Claudio Roditi, John Engels, Larry Corriel, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse, Philippe Catherine, Eric Legnini, Peter Herbolzheimer, Peter Hertmans, Aldo Romano, Gustavo Bergali, Claudio Roditi, Pierre van Dormael, John Ruocco, John Dankworth, played all the top jazz festivals and countless gigs in famous jazz clubs in Germany, USA, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, France, Bulgaria, Romania

in 2008 - Rúnar Júlíusson dies at age 63. Icelandic bassist with Thor's Hammer; formed in Keflavik in 1963, they soon became popular in Iceland and by the mid-1960s they were recording in London on Parlophone Records, including the legendary EP Umbarumbamba, now a valuable collector's item. From these sessions also came the singles "Once" and "If You Knew". They recorded their single entitled "Stay" in the United States on Columbia Records, which was produced by John Simon

in 2008 - Dominic Mallary dies at age 24. American vocalist for Massachusetts hardcore outfit Last Lights, the band had just signed a recording contract two days before this fatal night. (brain anyeurism. He felt ill 2 hours after finishing a show at Boston University’s BU Central late night campus venue, he died soon after in Boston Medical Center).

in 2009 - In an interview with the UK daily newspaper The Guardian, George Michael said he had cut back on his cannabis intake and now only smoked 'seven or eight' spliffs per day instead of the 25 he used to smoke.

in 2009 - Dr. Ragtime (Jack Rose) dies at age 38. American guitarist, best known for his solo acoustic guitar work. He was also a founding member of the noise/drone band Pelt. It wasn't until the early 2000's he took up his solo career, releasing his debut album Red Horse, White Mule in 2002, this was followed by around a dozen more albums many of them in limited pressings. He was inspired and influenced by pre-1942 Cajun, country, blues, jazz music and composers like Terry Riley and La Monte Young

in 2012 – Dave Brubeck, (originally David Warren), American jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer, dies at age 91.
Brubeck's father, Howard Peter Brubeck, was a cattle rancher; his mother, Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck, was a piano teacher. Though he began taking piano lessons from his mother at the age of four and played in bands as a teenager, he entered the College of the Pacific as a veterinary major, intending to follow his father into the cattle business. Nevertheless, he had become a music major by the time he graduated in 1942. After graduation he went into the army, where he led a service band. He married lola Marie Whitlock on Sept. 21,1942. They had six children, of whom four (David Darius, Christopher, Daniel, and Matthew) became professional musicians and played with their father.

Upon his discharge from the service in 1946, Brubeck studied composition with Darius Milhaud at Mills College for three years; he also studied piano with Fred Saatman in 1949. During this period he formed an octet that performed occasionally, though he more frequently appeared with the rhythm section of the group as the Dave Brubeck Trio.

He made his first recordings in 1949 for the Coronet label, and in 1950 helped found Fantasy Records, for which he recorded exclusively until 1954 and occasionally thereafter. The Dave Brubeck Trio broke up after Brubeck was injured in a swimming accident in 1950. When he recovered in 1951 he organized a quartet featuring Paul Desmond, alto sax. (real name Paul Emil Breitenfeld, b. 1924; d. 1977), Bob Bates. bs., and Joe Dodge, drm.

The personnel of the rhythm section varied over the next several years; the definitive version of the group featured drummer Joe Morello, who joined in 1956, and bass player Eugene Wright, who joined in 1958. The quartet rose in prominence through its appearances, notably at colleges, to the point that it was signed by Columbia Records and released its first major- label album, the live recording Jazz Goes to College, in June 1954. On Oct. 8, 1954, Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time magazine, and by the end of that month the album was in the charts, where it reached the Top Ten. Follow-up albums Dave Brubeck at 5toryville, Brubeck Time, and Jazz: Red, Hot and Cool all made the Top Ten in 1955. The Dave Brubeck Quartet continued to release charting albums in the late 1950s while touring extensively in the US. and around the world.

In October 1960 the group released Time Out, an album on which each song was performed in a different time signature, among them "Take Five" (music by Paul Desmond), which was in 5/4, and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (music by Dave Brubeck), which was in 9/8. "Blue Rondo ala Turk" earned Brubeck a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Composition, More Than 5 Minutes. In July 1961, Columbia released "Take Five" as a single; it reached the Top 40 by October, earning a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year, and Time Out vaulted into the Top Ten, going gold and remaining in the charts for more than three years. In November, Columbia released Time Further Out, which hit the Top Ten in February 1962. The chart single "Unsquare Dance" (music by Dave Brubeck) drawn from the album, earned Brubeck a Grammy nomination for Best Original Jazz Composition.

Brubeck made his sole screen appearance in the film All Night Long, released in the U.S. in February 1962. For the next several years he toured extensively while releasing two or three albums a year, several of which made the charts. Dave Brubeck at Carnegie Hall, a double live album recorded Feb. 21, 1963, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Soloist or Small Group. Brubeck wrote music for the network television series Mr. Broadway, which ran from September to December 1964. "Theme from Mr. Broadway, " included on the album Jazz Impressions of New York, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition.

Brubeck's record sales fell off after the mid-1960s. The quartet disbanded in December 1967, ostensibly so that Brubeck could devote himself more to the kind of jazz-based classical compositions he had been writing since the early 1960s. But by May 1968 he was back on the road with a new group featuring baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, bass player Jack Six, and drummer Alan Dawson. Their album Compadres earned a 1968 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Small Group or Soloist with Small Group. They also performed and recorded backed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orch.

Brubeck parted ways with Columbia Records in 1971 and signed to Atlantic Records. For his fall 1972 tour of Europe, his group was joined by Paul Desmond, resulting in the 1973 album We're All Together Again (For the First Time). Brubeck launched a new group in 1973, Two Generations of Brubeck, featuring his sons David Darius (electric kybd.), Christopher (bs. gtr.), and Daniel (drm.), along with such other performers as alto saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi. Brubeck continued to tour and to release at least an album a year in the mid- 1970s. 1975: The Duets, released on Horizon Records, paired him once again with Paul Desmond and reached the pop charts.

In March 1976 he reassembled the Dave Brubeck Quartet of 1958-67 for a concert tour to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the group. This resulted in the 1977 album 25th Anniversary Reunion; but Desmond's death on May 30, 1977, put an end to the group. Brubeck organized a new Dave Brubeck Quartet, initially featuring Jerry Bergonzi, Christopher Brubeck, and drummer Butch Miles, and began recording for the Concord Jazz label, switching to MusicMasters in 1987 and to Telarc in 1993.

He wrote the score for the 1984 film Ordeal by Innocence. Health problems forced him to cut back on his performing schedule somewhat in the 1990s, but he continued to work regularly. In September 1997 his quartet, featuring alto saxophonist and flautist Bobby Militello, bass player Jack Six, and drummer Randy Jones, recorded 50 What's New?, an album of new compositions released by Telarc in April 1998.

Following the demise of the Swing Era and the limited appeal of bebop, the Dave Brubeck Quartet achieved widespread popular success with its smallgroup "cool" jazz in the second half of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s. Brubeck's classically informed musical experimentation, notably performing pieces in unusual time signatures, was offset by the lyricism of the quartet's alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond, resulting in a remarkable 21 pop-chart albums between 1954 and 1976, among them the gold-selling Time Out, which featured the Top 40 hit "Take Five." DISC: Jazz at Oberlin (1953); Jazz Goes to College (1954); Jazz at the College of the Pacific (1954); D. B./Paul Desmond (with Paul Desmond; 1954); Brubeck Time (1955); Brubeck Plays Brubeck (1956); Dave Digs Disney (1957); In Europe (1958); Newport 1958 (1959); Time Out (1960); Time Further Out (1961); Countdown Time in Outer Space (1962); D. B:s Greatest Hits (1966); Adventures in Time (1972); Two Generations of Brubeck-Brother the Great Spirit Made Us All (1973); 1975: The Duets (with Paul Desmond; 1975); Time Signatures: A Career Retrospective (1992); A D. B. Christmas (1996); Love Songs (2000); One Alone (2000). BIBL.: H. Brubeck, D. B. (1961); Biography of D. B. (1972); lise Storb and Klaus Fischer, D. B.: Improvisations and Compositions: The Idea of Cultural Exchange (N.Y.; 1994); Fred M. Hall, It's about Time: The D. B. Story (Fayetteville, Ark., 1996). - Born at Concord, Calif., Dec. 6, 1920.

in 1642 - Johann Christoph Bach, eldest son of Reinrich, organist and composer of the highest distinction among the earlier Bachs, is born at Arnstadt. From 1663 to 1665 he was an organist in Arnstadt, and from 1665 in Eisenach, where, from 1700, he was court musician. A thematic catalogue of his compositions was published by M. Schneider in the Bach-Jahrbuch (1907, pp. 132-77). C.P.E. Bach described him as a "great and expressive composer". His works are printed in Das Erbe deutscher Musik (vols. I and II, Leipzig, 1935); several of his motets were publ. by V. Junk (Leipzig, 1922); 44 chorales with preludes for organ were ed. by M. Fischer (Kassel, 1936); 3 additional such works attributed to him were edited by C. Wolff in The Neumeister Collection of Chorale Preludes from the Bach Circle (Yale University Manuscript LM 4708) (facsimile ed., New Haven, 1986); his Praeludium und Fuge for Organ is in D. Hellmann, edited, Orgelwerke der Familie Bach (Leipzig, 1967). - Died at Eisenach, March 31, 1703.

in 1896 - Ira Gershwin, (originally, Gershvin, Israel), ingenious American lyricist; brother of George Gershwin, is born at N.Y. Gershwin wrote lyrics primarily for the songs of his brother George Gershwin in a series of stage and movie musicals in the 1920s and 1930s. Witty and colloquial, Gershwin's lyrics ranked with those of Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart as the most sophisticated of their time. With his brother, Gershwin wrote such hits as "I Got Rhythm," "They Can't Take That Away from Me," and "Love Walked In."

Before and after his brother's death, Gershwin also collaborated with composers Vincent Youmans, Vernon Duke, Harry Warren, Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill, Aaron Copland, Jerome Kern, Arthur Schwartz, and Burton Lane on such songs as "Long Ago (And Far Away)" and "The Man That Got Away." Gershwin's parents, Morris and Rose Burskin Gershvin (originally Gershovitz), were Russian immigrants. Gershwin attended the City ColI. of N.Y. from 1914 to 1916 and began contributing stories and light verse to periodicals.

His first lyric to be heard onstage was "The Real American Folk Song (Is a Rag)" (music by George Gershwin), used in the Nora Bayes musical Ladies First (N.Y.,Oct. 24, 1918). By the time of the Gershwins' next notable collaboration, George had achieved success with "Swanee," and Ira adopted the pseudonym Arthur Francis for his first song to be published, "Waiting for the Sun to Come Out," used in the musical The Sweetheart Shop (N.Y.,Aug. 31, 1920). The song was recorded for a hit by Lambert Murphy in January 1921.

Still as Arthur Francis, Gershwin wrote lyrics to songs by Youmans and Paul Lannin for the musical Two Little Girls in Blue, which had a run of 135 performances, with "Oh Me! Oh My!" becoming a hit for Frank Crumit and the Paul Biese Trio in November 1921. By 1922, George Gershwin had begun writing songs for the annual revue George White's Scandals; in that year's edition, Ira Gershwin collaborated with B. G. De Sylva on the lyrics to "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," which became a best- selling instrumental record for Paul Whiteman and His arch. in January 1923. Gershwin abandoned his pseudonym in 1924and he and his brother mounted their first successful Broadway show, Lady, Be Good! Featuring the dance team of Fred and Adele Astaire as well as Cliff Edwards, it ran 330 performances and generated two hits in the spring of 1925:"Fascinating Rhythm," recorded by Edwards, and "Oh, Lady Be Good," given its most successful recording as an instrumental by Whiteman, though Edwards had a popular vocal record. Also intended for the show was "The Man I Love," though it was cut and published independently.

After being dropped from two other Gershwin shows, the song finally became a hit in March 1928 for Marion Harris (among others) and went on to become a standard. The Gershwins were joined by De Sylva for the disappointing Tell Me More, which ran 100 performances; they bounced back with Tip-Toes, which ran 194 performances and contained three songs that became hits in the spring of 1926: "Looking for a Boy" by the Arden-Ohman Orch., "That Certain Feeling" by Whiteman, and "Sweet and Low-Down" by Harry Archer and His Orch., all recorded as instrumentals. The run-up to the next Gershwin musical, Oh, Kny!, was dramatic for Ira: While it was being written, he came down with appendicitis, so Howard Dietz was brought in to write some lyrics; later, during rehearsals, on Sept. 14, 1926, he married Leonore Strunksy. (The 1258 couple remained married until Gershwin's death. They had no children.) The show, which starred Gertrude Lawrence, was a hit, running 256 performances, and its score featured five songs that became hits in 1927: "Someone to Watch over Me" by Lawrence, among others; "Do, Do, Do" by George Olsen and His Orch.; "Clap Yo' Hands," an instrumental recording by Roger Wolfe Kahn and His arch. and a vocal record by "Whispering" Jack Smith; "Maybe" by Nat Shilkret and the Victor Orch.: and "Fidgety Feet," an instrumental record by Fletcher Henderson and His arch.

The Gershwins next attempted an antiwar political satire in Strike Up the Band (Long Branch, N.J., Aug. 29, 1927), which had a book by George S. Kaufman, but the show closed out of town. The more conventional Funny Face, featuring the Astaires, was a success, running 244 performances, with three songs emerging from it as hit records in 1928: '''S Wonderful" by Frank Crumit; the title song, by the Arden-Ohman arch. (pianists Victor Arden and Phil Ohman appeared in the show); and "My One and Only" by Jane Green. The Gershwins worked for impresario Florenz Ziegfeld on the extravaganza Rosalie, although Sigmund Romberg and P. G. Wodehouse had already written a score for the show. It ran 335 performances, its most memorable song being the Gershwins's "How Long Has This Been Going On?"

Even more successful was the British musical That'sa Good Girl,to which Gershwin and others contributed lyrics; it ran 363 performances. The Gershwins's own next musical, Treasure Girl,on the other hand, was a flop, now memorable only for introducing the standard "I've Got a Crush on You." Show Girl, another Ziegfeld production, found the Gershwins collaborating with Gus Kahn, notably on "Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)," given unscheduled performances by Al [olson, whose wife, Ruby Keeler, was featured. The show ran 111 performances, and the song became a hit in a recording by [olson in September 1929. With a new book by Morrie Ryskind, Strike Up the Band finally reached Broadway at the start of 1930, where it became a hit, running 191 performances. The title song was a popular record for Red Nichols and His Five Pennies in February.

Gershwin next contributed lyrics to the revue The Garrick Gaieties (N.Y., June 4, 1930), including "I Am Only Human After All" (music by Vernon Duke, lyrics also by E. Y. Harburg), which became a hit for the Colonial Club Orch. in July. The Gershwins returned to light musical comedy with Girl Crazy, which became the biggest success of the 1930-31 Broadway season, running 272 performances, establishing the careers of Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers, and generating two immediate hits, "Embraceable You" and "I Got Rhythm," which made up the two sides of a popular record by Red Nichols in the fall of 1930. The score also featured "Bidin' My Time," which became a hit for The Foursome in November 1931, and "But Not for Me." Before the end of 1930, Gershwin had another hit as "Cheerful Little Earful" (music by Harry Warren, lyrics also by Billy Rose) was featured in the revue Sweet and Low (N.Y., Nov. 17, 1930) and given a popular recording by Tom Gerun and His arch. in December.

By that time, Ira and George Gershwin had signed a contract with Fox Pictures and traveled to L.A. to write songs for their first film musical. Delicious, released at the end of 1931, featured four Gershwin songs, among them "Delishious," which became a hit for Nat Shilkret in January 1932. The Cershwins, however, had long since returned to N.Y. to concentrate on stage work. Their next effort was the ambitious satire on presidential politics, Of Thee I Sing, which ran 441 performances, produced a hit in the title song (recorded by Ben Selvin and His arch. performing as The Knickerbockers), and became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the award shared by book writers Kaufman and Ryskind and lyricist Gershwin.

The Gershwins suffered two flops in 1933:Pardon My English and the sequel to Of Thee I Sing, Let 'Em EatCake (which nevertheless generated a hit in "Mine," recorded by Emil Coleman and His arch. in November). They then separated temporarily, as George began work with DuBose Heyward on the opera Porgy and Bess and Ira collaborated with Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg on the revue Life Begins at 8:40. The revue was a hit, running 237 performances and featuring two hits: "You're a Builder-Upper," recorded by Leo Reisman and His arch. with Arlen singing, and "Fun to Be Fooled" by Henry King and His arch. Gershwin re-joined his brother and Heyward and collaborated on lyrics to several of the songs in Porgy and Bess, including "I Got Plenty 0' Nuthin'" and "I Loves You, Porgy," as well as writing all the lyrics to "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for N.Y."

Opening in a Broadway theater, Porgy and Bess ran a modestly successful 124 performances, though it gained in stature over time, eventually being recognized as one of George Gershwin's greatest achievements. Gershwin and Duke wrote the songs for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. It ran 115 performances, its most memorable song being "I Can't Get Started." The Gershwins then signed to RKO, and on Aug. 10, 1936, they moved permanently to L.A. Their first effort was the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film Shall We Dance, for which they wrote six songs, among them "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," which reached the hit parade in May 1937, and "They Can't Take That Away from Me," which was in the hit parade in June, both in recordings by Astaire. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" earned an Academy Award nomination. The score also included "They All Laughed."

George Gershwin died of a brain tumor on July 11, 1937. Prior to his death, the brothers had completed the songs for their next film and begun work on another. A Damsel in Distress, also starring Astaire, contained seven songs, among them "Nice Work If You Can Get It," which was on the hit parade in November 1937, and"A Foggy Day." Ira teamed with Vernon Duke to complete the songs for The Goldwyn Follies. The final songs credited to the Gershwins included "Our Love Is Here to Stay" and "Love Walked In."

The latter topped the hit parade in May 1938 for Sammy Kaye and His Orch., becoming one of the biggest hits of the year. Gershwin's first major effort since the death of his brother came in 1941 with Ladyin the Dark, on which he collaborated with Kurt Weill. A precursor to the more serious, integrated musicals that became common after Oklahoma! two years later, the show ran 467 performances and was memorable for star Gertrude Lawrence's performance of "The Saga of Jenny" and Danny Kaye's emergence as a star through his tonguetwisting rendition of the patter song "Tchaikowsky (And Other Russians)." Porgy and Bess received its first Broadway revival on Jan. 22, 1942; the revival outdistanced the original production, running 286 performances.

In August, Harry James and His arch. had a hit recording of "But Not for Me." The following year the song was heard onscreen in the second film version of Girl Crazy, starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Also in 1943, Gershwin wrote the lyrics to music by Aaron Copland for the film The North Star. The year 1944 began with a chart revival of "Embraceable You" by Tommy Dorsey and His arch. with [o Stafford and the Pied Pipers on vocals, a 1941 recording that had been reissued due to the musicians union recording ban. Gershwin collaborated with Jerome Kern on songs for the film Cover Girl,among them "Long Ago (And Far Away)," which became his single most successful song, attracting half-a-dozen chart recordings, the most popular of which was by Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest in April; the song was nominated for an Academy Award.

Gershwin had two projects with Kurt Weill in 1945. The Firebrand of Florence, a musical for which Gershwin also cowrote the libretto, was unsuccessful, and the team also wrote the songs for the 20th Century-Fox feature Where Do We Gofrom Here? Park Avenue, written with Arthur Schwartz, was another failure and marked Gershwin's last new Broadway musical. For the film The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Gershwin and Kay Swift assembled some of George Gershwin's musical sketches into songs. Gershwin collaborated with Harry Warren on the last Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers film, The Barkleys of Broadway, in 1949.

An American in Paris, written by Alan Jay Lerner, directed by Vincente Minnelli, and starring Gene Kelly, brought the Gershwin brothers's music back into movie theaters in 1951 and, with the release of a soundtrack album, to the top of the charts at the start of 1952. For the film, Gershwin added new lyrics to such songs as "I Got Rhythm" and "'S Wonderful." Revived on Broadway a second time, Porgy and Bess (N.Y., March 10, 1953) had its most successful run yet, continuing for 305 performances. In November 1953 The Hilltoppers took a revival of "Love Walked In" into the Top Ten. Give a Girl a Break, a new film musical on which Gershwin collaborated with Burton Lane, was released in December.

Gershwin retired at the end of 1954 after completing two films with Harold Arlen, both dramas with music: A Star Is Born, starring Judy Garland, who sang the Oscar-nominated "The Man That Got Away," and The Country Girl, starring Bing Crosby. 1959 with the release of a film version of the opera along with several recordings, among them Nina Simone's Top 40 revival of "I Loves You, Porgy." Dinah Washington scored a Top 40 revival of "Love Walked In" in 1960. Ketty Lester had a chart revival of "But Not for Me" in 1962. In 1964, Gershwin contributed three new songs based on existing fragments of music by his brother for use in director Billy Wilder's satiric film Kiss Me, Stupid, starring Dean Martin. The Happenings revived "I Got Rhythm" for a Top Ten hit in 1967. In the 1980s and 1990s the Gershwins returned to Broadway with two new musicals, My One and Only and Crazyfor You, that featured their songs. Gershwin's songs also enjoyed frequent concert and nightclub performances and recordings by a variety of singers, notably Michael Feinstein, who had served as Gershwin's secretary in his later years. - Died at Beverly Hills, Aug. 17, 1983.

in 1949 - Lead Belly (originally, Huddie Ledbetter), troubled American folk and blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, dies at N.Y. (Although initially spelled as two words, for many years, his nickname was spelled as "Leadbelly"; however, recently the original two-word spelling has come back into favor.) Lead Belly led a tumultuous, often violent life, but he galvanized the folk music community of the 1930s and 1940s with his vibrant performances, and his repertoire of songs (which he collected, adapted, and wrote) proved popular and influential after his death, when such works as "Goodnight, Irene," "Rock Island Line," and "The Midnight Special" became popular with folk, pop, and rock audiences.

Lead Belly was the son of John Wesley Ledbetter, a farmer, and Sallie Pugh Ledbetter, who married Feb. 21, 1888. The day and date of his birth are uncertain. The family moved from Caddo Parish, La., to Harrison County, Tex., still adjacent to Caddo Lake on the eastern border of Tex., when he was five. He showed an early interest in music, learning to play the button accordion (or "windjammer"), and eventually mandolin, guitar, harmonica, Jew's harp, piano, and organ. His chief instructors were his two uncles, Bob and Terrell Ledbetter. Terrell taught him "Goodnight, Irene," apparently derived from "Irene, Goodnight" by Gussie Lord Davis, published in 1886, but much altered. Lead Belly would alter it further. Lead Belly attended grammar school, probably from the ages of eight to 12 or 13, after which he worked as a farmer with his father. He seems to have been given his first guitar about 1903, the same year that he began playing in public.

In 1904 he moved to Shreveport, La., where he spent two years playing in the city's red-light district. After a brief return home, he wandered through Tex. and La., working as a musician, but went home again when he became ill, probably from a venereal disease. He may have attended Bishops ColI. in Marshall, Tex., for a time. On July 20, 1908, he married Aletha Henderson, and they lived on his parents' farm until late 1910, when they moved to Dallas. They picked cotton during the summer, and Lead Belly worked as a musician in the winter. Around 1912, Lead Belly met a young Blind Lemon Jefferson, and the two worked together intermittently for several years. Lead Belly and his wife returned to Henderson County in the spring of 1915.

He was arrested in June 1915, apparently due to an alleged assault, but his parents signed away their farm to get a lawyer, and when he came to trial in September he was convicted only of carrying a pistol and sentenced to 30 days on a chain gang. Nevertheless, he escaped, and he and his wife moved to Bowie County, where they became tenant farmers as Mr. and Mrs. Walter Boyd. After an altercation in December 1917, Lead Belly was convicted of murdering his cousin's husband and assaulting another man with intent to murder, drawing a sentence of seven to 30 years. Lead Belly's marriage ended during his incarceration, although he does not seem to have been legally divorced. In 1920 he was transferred to Central State Farm near Houston, a facility known as Sugarland due to its proximity to a sugar refinery. There he became an entertainer in addition to the usual prison work, and he acquired and adapted many of the songs he later performed and recorded, most prominent among them "The Midnight Special," which referred to a late-night train that passed near the prison. Tex. governor Patrick Neff occasionally visited the prison during 1924, and Lead Belly entertained him, even singing a specially written song in which he pleaded for a pardon.

Neff granted the pardon on Jan. 16, 1925, shortly before he left office, shortening Lead Belly's minimum sentence by several months. After a short time in Houston, he moved back to Mooringsport, where he worked at least part- time as a musician. In February 1930 he was convicted of "assault with intent to murder" in Mooringsport, sentenced to six to ten years, and sent to the state penitentiary in Angola, La. Folk song collector John A. Lomax, under the auspices of the Library of Congress, made field recordings of Lead Belly at Angola in July 1933. Lomax returned the following year. Lead Belly's sentence was commuted for good behavior, and he was released on Aug. 1, 1934. He went to Shreveport, where he stayed with Martha Promise, whom he had known before going to prison; they married on Jan. 20, 1935.

In September 1934 he went to work for Lomax as his driver and assistant; at one of their stops in Ark. they discovered "Rock Island Line," a song about a railroad running between Little Rock and Memphis that Lead Belly later adapted (adding a spoken introduction) and recorded. Lomax took Lead Belly to N.Y. in early 1935; they made personal appearances around the Northeast through March, and Lead Belly made his first commercial recordings for the American Record Corporation (ARC) label (later Columbia Records). Like the other recordings he made, these sold poorly during his lifetime. He and Lomax signed a management contract, though they quickly had a falling-out and Lead Belly returned to the South. Lead Belly moved to N.Y. in February 1936 and began to perform in public again, often at left-wing political gatherings. He made commercial recordings for Musicraft in April 1939. In May he was convicted of third-degree assault in N.Y. and sentenced to eight months incarceration. In June 1940 he made commercial recordings for RCA Victor.

He appeared in N.Y. nightclubs such as the Village Vanguard and performed on radio, notably on the network program Back Where I Come From in September 1940 and on his own show, Folksongs of America, on the local WNYC station in the fall of 1940. Starting in May 1941, Lead Belly recorded frequently for the small record labels operated by Moses Asch, including Asch, Disc, Stinson, and Folkways. The recordings were made both alone and with such partners as Woody Guthrie and the team of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Between the summer of 1944 and the spring of 1946, Lead Belly lived in L.A., where he recorded for Capitol Records in October 1944 and appeared on local radio station KRE. He returned to N.Y. and continued to perform, notably at concerts sponsored by the left-wing folk music organization People's Songs.

He played in Paris in May 1949, where he was diagnosed as suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a rare and incurable paralytic affliction, which killed him. In August 1950, "Goodnight, Irene" became the biggest record hit of the year in a version by Gordon Jenkins and His arch. and the Weavers that sold two million copies. The song also generated Top Ten pop hits for Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford, a chart-topping country version by Ernest Tubb and Red Foley, and a Top Ten country hit for Moon Mullican. In August 1951 the Weavers scored a Top 40 hit with "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," a song they had adapted from Lead Belly's "If It Wasn't for Dickey," and that he had adapted from the Irish folk song "Drimmer's Cow." The song became a gold-selling Top Ten hit for Jimmie Rodgers in December 1957. In January 1956 the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group scored a Top Ten hit in the UK with "Rock Island Line," setting off the British skiffle music fad; the recording made the U.S. Top Ten in the spring, and the song was also a Top 40 Country hit for Johnny Cash in February 1970. "The Midnight Special," which had been a minor R&B hit for the Tiny Grimes Quintet in November 1948, became a Top 40 pop hit for Paul Evans in January 1960 and for Johnny Rivers in February 1965. "Cotton Fields" (or "Old Cotton Fields at Home"), another song introduced by Lead Belly, became a Top 40 hit for the Highwaymen in December 1961. Leadbelly, a 1976 film biography directed by Gordon Parks and starring Roger E. Mosley, focused on the singer's life up to 1933. - Born near Mooringsport, La., Jan. 20, 1888.

in 1958 - Erwin Bodky, German-American music scholar, is born at Ragnit. He studied piano and theory in Berlin with Dohnanyi and Juon, and later attended classes of Richard Strauss and Busoni at the Meisterschule fur Komposition (1920-22). He subsequently taught at the Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin. With the advent of the Nazi regime in 1933, Bodky went to Amsterdam, where he remained until 1938. He then emigrated to the U.S., and taught at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass. (1938-48). In 1949 he was appointed a professor at Brandeis University. - Died at Lucerne, Dec. 6, 1958.

in 1958 - Danny Alvin dies at age 55. American jazz drummer; in a lengthy career he's played drums and recorded with many traditional jazz groups, he played with Sophie Tucker at the New York club Reisenweber's in 1919, then moved to Chicago in the early 1920s. He played in both cities over the course of his career, playing with Sidney Bechet, George Brunis, Buck Clayton, Wild Bill Davison, Wingy Manone, Joe Marsala, Art Hodes, Mezz Mezzrow, and George Zack. As a leader he recorded sparsely;; his best-known issue was his 1958 album recorded for Stepheny Records. Also he is the father of guitarist Teddy Walters.

in 1959 - Gene Vincent made his UK live debut at The Tooting Granada, London, when he was a guest on The Marty Wilde Show.

in 1961 - Jonathan Melvoin (US keyboardist, drums; Smashing Pumpkins/others/sessionist) is born
in 1961 - David Lovering (US drummer; The Pixies) is born.

in 1961 - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best met with Brian Epstein for further discussions about his proposal to manage them. Epstein wanted 25% of their gross fees each week. He promises that their bookings will be better organised, more prestigious, and will expand beyond the Liverpool area. He also promises that they will never again play for less than £15, except for Cavern lunchtime sessions, for which he will get their fee doubled to ten pounds. Lennon, as leader of The Beatles, accepts on their behalf.

in 1962 - Bob Dylan recorded ‘A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall’ during a session at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City.

in 1962 - Ben Watt (UK DJ, musician, record producer; Everything But The Girl) is born.
in 1963 - Beatles begin a tradition of releasing a Christmas record for fans.

in 1964 - The film 'Ferry Cross The Mersey' premiered in London. Featuring Gerry And The Pacemakers, Cilla Black and other Liverpool acts. It was written by Tony Warren, creator of the UK's longest running TV soap 'Coronation Street'.

in 1966 - The Beatles recorded Christmas and New Year's greetings for pirate radio stations Radio Caroline and Radio London. Both stations were broadcasting from ships anchored off the British coastline.

in 1967 - Cliff Richard was confirmed into membership of The Church Of England at St. Paul's Church, Finchley, London.

in 1967 - The Beatles started a seven-week run at No.1 in the UK with 'Hello Goodbye' their 13th No.1 single.
in 1967 - Hacken Lee (Hong Kong Cantopop singer) is born.

in 1969 - Led Zeppelin made their debut on the US singles chart with 'Whole Lotta Love', it went on to make No.4 on the chart and was the first of six Top 40 singles for the group in the US. During the bands career, Zeppelin never released any singles in the UK.

in 1969 - One hit wonders Steam started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye'. The song became a UK No.5 single for girl group Bananarama in 83.

in 1969 - The Rolling Stones played a free festival at Altamont in California, along with Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Rolling Stones fan Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death as the group played by Hell's Angels who'd been hired to police the event. It's claimed Hunter was waving a revolver. One other man drowned, two men were killed by in a hit-and run accident and two babies were born.

in 1971 - During a UK tour Crosby Stills & Nash played the first of two nights at The Festival Hall in London.
in 1973 - Justus Hermann Wetzel composer, dies at 94.
in 1975 - Paul Simon went to No.1 on the US album chart with 'Still Crazy After All These Years', his first US No.1 solo album.

in 1975 - Rev Charles Boykin of Tallahassee, Florida organised the burning of Elton John and Rolling Stones records, claiming they were sinful. Boykin was reacting to the results from a survey that said, 984 of the 1,000 local unmarried mothers had sex when listening to rock music.

in 1976 - Showaddywaddy were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Under The Moon Of Love', (originally a hit in 1961 for Curtis Lee). The rock 'n' roll revival group from Leicester, England had nine other Top 10 hits with remakes.

in 1978 - Sex Pistol Sid Vicious smashed a glass in the face of Patti Smith's brother Todd Smith during a fight at New York City club Hurrah.

in 1980 - The Police appeared at the Fox Theater, Atlanta, Georgia supported by R.E.M.
in 1982 - U2 appeared at The Hammersmith Palais, London, England.
in 1983 - Duran Duran appeared live at the Apollo, Manchester, England.

in 1983 - Lucienne Boyer Èmilienne-Henriette Boyer dies at age 80. French female singer, born in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris. In 1927, she sang at a concert by the great star Félix Mayol where she was seen by the American impresario Lee Shubert who immediately offered her a contract to come to Broadway. She spent nine months in New York City, returning to perform there and to South America numerous times throughout the 1930s. By 1933 she had made a large number of recordings for Columbia Records of France including her signature song, " Parlez-moi d'amour", the song won the first-ever Grand Prix du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy. Following the Allied Forces liberation of France, her cabaret career flourished and for another thirty years, she maintained a loyal following. At the age of 73, she sang with her daughter at the famous Paris Olympia and appeared on several French television shows

in 1986 - Europe were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'The Final Countdown'. They became only the second Swedish act to score a UK No.1. The song reached No.1 in 25 countries and the song's lyrics were inspired by David Bowie's song 'Space Oddity'.

in 1986 - Peter Cetera and Amy Grant went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'The Next Time I Fall', not a hit in the UK.

in 1987 - Izler Solomon dies at age 77. American orchestra conductor, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota; From 1936 to 1941 he conducted the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, where he premiered more than 150 American works. He was then music director of the Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra 1941-1949, and of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra 1956-1976. As a guest conductor he appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, and Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra. His career was cut short by a stroke in 1976. He made a number of fine recordings, including the world premiere recording of Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No.2, with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, and Jascha Heifetz as soloist, in 1954.

in 1988 - Roy Orbison dies at age 52. Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, guitarist and a pioneer of rock and roll whose recording career spanned more than four decades. His many hits included "Ooby Dooby", "Only the Lonely", "In Dreams", "Oh, Pretty Woman", "Crying", "Running Scared" and "You Got It". He was known for his smooth tenor voice, which could jump three octaves with little trouble. He was rarely seen on stage without his trademark black sunglasses. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1988, he, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan formed the super group Traveling Wilburys who recorded two albums, but sadly Roy had died before the 2nd album and in 1989, he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

in 1989- Sammy Fain dies at age 87. American music composer, he worked in collaboration with Irving Kahal, writing such as "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella", and with Lew Brown -"That Old Feeling". His Broadway credits also include Everybody's Welcome, Right This Way, Hellzapoppin', I'll Be Seeing You, Flahooley, Ankles Aweigh, Christine and Something More. Sammy composed music for more than 30 films in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. He was nominated for the best Original Song Oscar nine times, winning twice, with "Secret Love" from Calamity Jane in 1954 and with "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" from the movie of the same title in 1955. He wrote the second theme to the TV series Wagon Train in 1958, called "(Roll Along) Wagon Train". He also contributed to the song scores for the Walt Disney animated films Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Rescuers. In 1963, he collaborated with Harold Adamson in writing songs for the movie The Incredible Mr. Limpet, and such songs as "I Wish I Were a Fish", "Be Careful How You Wish" and "Deep Rapture".

in 1990 - Pavlos Sidiropoulos dies at age 42. Greek singer, songwriter, composer; born in Athens, he formed the band “Damon and Phidias” with his friend Pantelis Delleyannidis in 1970. Soon after the two musicians joined the influential Greek musician Dionysis Savvopoulos and his group “Bourboulia”, recording the album “Damis The Tough”. It was through this group that Sidiropoulos first experimented with combining Greek and Rock music. He next collaborated with the Greek composer Yannis Markopoulos: he sang in his compositions “Oropedio”, “Thessalikos Kiklos” and "Electric Theseus". Then in 1976, he founded the band “Spiridoula” recording the album "Flou", considered by many the most important album in Greek rock music. He had the leading role in the film “O Asymvivastos”, directed by Andreas Thomopoulos, he sang all of the songs of the soundtrack. At the same time, he starred in another movie by Thomopoulos, “Aldevaran”. Sidiropoulos also made one appearance on TV in a series called “Oikogeneia Zarnti”. In 1980, Pavlos joined the band “Oi Aprosarmostoi”, where he remained until his death. In the summer of 1990, his right hand started getting paralyzed, as a result of his long term drug use that he was trying to overcome for many years. He continued his live performances but the deterioration of his health had serious psychological implications. Despite his early death, he remains one of the most popular rock musicians in Greece (died from heart attack, caused by heroin overdose)

in 1995 - Robert Fizdale dies at age 75. American pianist; he met fellow pianist Arthur Gold during their student years at Juilliard. They formed a lifelong gay partnership based around their common interests of music and formed one of the most important Piano duos of the 20th century. It has been said that Gold and Fizdale revolutionized the art of performing as a two-piano duo, agree or not, they were commissioned and premièred many of the most important works for this ensemble in the second half of the 20th century, including works by John Cage, Paul Bowles, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem and many other important American Composers. The Duo released recordings featuring works by Les Six, Vittorio Rieti, and many other composers, as well as a series of Concerto recordings with Leonard Bernstein and The New York Philharmonic, including the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos, The Mozart Two Piano Concerto and Saint-Saëns's "Carnival of the Animals" .

in 1995 - Michael Jackson collapsed and was treated for dehydration while rehearsing for the HBO special Michael Jackson: One Night Only at The Beacon Theater in New York.

in 2000 - Aziz Mian Abdul Aziz dies at age 58. Pakistani singer born in Delhi, one of Pakistan's leading traditional qawwals and also famous for singing ghazals in a unique style of qawwali. Aziz is still one of the most popular qawwals of south asia. He is responsible for the longest commercially released qawwali, ''Hashr Ke Roz Yeh Poochhunga'', which runs slightly over 115 minutes. (hepatitis).

in 2000 - The Strokes appeared at The Mercury Lounge in New York City.
in 2000 - The Foo Fighters kicked off a 5-date UK tour at the Manchester Apollo.

in 2002 - Percussionist David Leon ‘Billy’ Knight, brother of Gladys Knight died of a heart attack aged 55. (1973 US No.1 single 'Midnight Train To Georgia', 1975 UK No.4 single 'The Way We Were' plus 20 other UK Top 40 singles).

in 2002 - David "Billy" Knight dies at age 55. American percussionist, and brother of Gladys Knight.

in 2003 - Hans Hotter dies at age 94. German operatic bass-baritone admired internationally after World War II for the power, beauty, and intelligence of his singing, especially in Wagner operas. He made his Covent Garden debut in 1947, after which, he sang in all the major opera houses of Europe. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as the title role in The Flying Dutchman, in English, in 1950. In four seasons at the Met, he performed 35 times in 13 roles, almost all Wagnerian. He retired from the stage in 1972, but made occasional appearances in small roles thereafter. He was a notable narrator in Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, a role he continued to take well into his eighties

in 2003 - Elvis Costello married jazz artist Diana Krall in a ceremony at Elton John's UK mansion. About 150 guests, including Sir Paul McCartney, attended the wedding. It was Costello's third marriage.

in 2005 - A Jeep hit a patch of ice on Elvis Presley Boulevard and crashed through ‘the graffiti wall’ outside the Graceland mansion. No-one was hurt in the accident.

in 2005 - Robbie Williams accepted substantial libel damages over claims that he is secretly homosexual. The People newspaper, Star and Hot Stars magazines in 2004 published stories alleging Mr Williams had engaged in casual homosexual sex. The publications' owners, MGN Limited and Northern & Shell plc, now accepted the stories were untrue and had agreed undisclosed damages, the court heard. Tom Shields QC, told the court: "Mr Williams is not, and has never been, homosexual."

in 2005 - Myleene Klass was the victim of a ‘happy slapping’ attack by two girls and three boys in London. The former Hear’Say member had chips thrown at her and was thrown to the ground.

in 2005 - Danny Williams dies at age 63. South African singer; he spent most of his life in the UK, where he made a few successful singles, mainly popular ballads, before hsving a No.1 hit with his cover version of "Moon River" in 1961. It led to his appearance in a film about a rock group, directed by Michael Winner, called Play it Cool which starred Billy Fury. "White On White" became popular abroad and was his only U.S. Top Ten hit, charting in 1964. He continued to record for HMV until 1967 while working the nightclub circuit

in 2006 - Darren "Wiz" Brown dies at age 44. British lead-singer and guitarist of English indie punk band Mega City Four in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group were noted for their hard-working ethics and extensive touring.Their hits included “Miles Apart”, “Running In Darkness”, and “Less Than Senseless”. From 1999 he worked with bands Serpico releasing the mini-album "Everyone Versus Everyone" and Ipanema who he stayed with until his death. Wiz was also known for his thought provoking lyrics.

in 2008 - Beyoncé went to No.1 on the US album chart with ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce’, the singers third studio album. It debuted at No.1, making Knowles the third female artist this decade after Britney Spears and Alicia Keys to have her first three albums debut in the top spot.

in 2010 - Bob Fox dies at age 62. American concert promoter who helped launch Kiss in Detroit and assisted the rejuvenation of the downtown theatre district. A decorated Marine who had served in Vietnam, Bob founded Brass Ring Productions in 1974, quickly turning it into the region’s top independent concert promoter, handling many of Detroit’s top rock shows for the next three decades, including dates at Cobo Arena, Joe Louis Arena and the Pontiac Silverdome. His bookings included shows by Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Kiss, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr to mention a few. He and Brass Ring diversified over time, pioneering Meadow Brook Music Festival, as well as reinvigorating Royal Oak Music Theatre and running Harpos, the east-side hard rock club. A friend of boxing bigwig Don King, Bob became a leading producer of closed-circuit fight broadcasts in the 1980s (suspected heart attack).

in 2011 - Dobie Gray / Lawrence Darrow Brown dies at age 71. African American singer and songwriter, Simonton, near Houston, Texas, whose musical career spanned soul, country, pop and musical theater. His hit records included "The 'In' Crowd" in 1965, and "Drift Away", which was one of the biggest hits of 1973, sold over one million copies, and remains a staple of radio airplay. He discovered gospel music through his grandfather, a Baptist minister. In the early 1960s he moved to Los Angeles, intending to pursue an acting career but also singing to make money. He recorded for several local labels under the names Leonard Ainsworth, Larry Curtis, and Larry Dennis, before Sonny Bono directed him towards the small independent Stripe Records. They suggested that he record under the name "Dobie Gray", an allusion to the then-popular sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Prior to "The 'In' Crowd", his first billboard success was his 7th single "Look At Me", which reached No.91. Dobie continued to record and tour around the world through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, with further hits such as "Out On The Floor", "If Love Must Go", "You Can Do It", "That's One to Grow On", "You Can Do It" and "Drift Away". As a succesful songwriter he w- Born July 26th 1940.

in 2011 - Barbara Orbison / Barbara Wellhoener Jakobs dies at age 60. American record producer and music publisher, widow of Roy Orbison. Born in Bielefeld, Germany, Barbara was Roy's manager and co-produced a four-CD box set of her husband's 107 recordings after his death. "Roy Orbison: The Soul of Rock and Roll" was released in 2008 and contains all of his hits and 12 previously unreleased tracks. Last year, 2010, Barbara accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on her husband's behalf. (Barbara died 23 years to the day of her husband's death after bravely battleing pancreatic cancer) - Born 1951.

in 1562 - Adrian Willaert, important Flemish composer and pedagogue, dies at Venice. He enrolled as a law student at the University of Paris, then devoted himself to music. He studied composition with Jean Mouton, a musician in the Royal Chapel. In 1515 he entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito I d'Este of Ferrara. He accompanied the cardinal, who was Archbishop of Esztergom, to Hungary in 1517; the cardinal died in 1520, and Willaert entered the service of Duke Alfonso I d'Este of Ferrara (1522); subsequently, Willaert was in the service of Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, the Archbishop of Milan (1525-27). On Dec. 12, 1527, he was appointed maestro di cappella of San Marco in Venice. With the exception of 2 visits to Flanders (1542 and 1556-57), he remained in Venice for the rest of his life, as a composer and teacher. Among his famous pupils were Zarlino, Cipriano de Rore, Andrea Gabrieli, and Costanzo Porta. Willaert was justly regarded as a founder of the great Venetian school of composition; the style of writing for 2 antiphonal choirs (prompted by the twin opposed organs of San Marco) was principally initiated by him. He was one of the greatest masters of the madrigal and of the instrumental ricercare; he also wrote motets, chansons, Psalms, and Masses. For the complete works, see H. Zenck and W. Gerstenberg, eds., Adrian Willaert: Opera omnia, in the Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae series, iii/I (Rome, 1950-77). - Born at Bruges or Roulaers, c. 1490.

in 1783 - The Theatre Royal (later to become the Royal Opera House) opened in Covent Garden, London.
in 1811 - Ignaz Spangler composer, dies at 54.
in 1823 - Johann Gottlieb Schwencke composer, dies at 79.
in 1829 - Johann Christoph Kienlen composer, dies at 45.
in 1834 - Ludwig Schuncke composer, dies at 23.

in 1835 - Dom Joseph Pothier, learned French music scholar who reconstituted the Gregorian chant, is born atBouzemont, near Saint-Die. He was ordained a priest (1858). He became a Benedictine monk in 1860 at Solesmes, in 1862, sub-prior, in 1866, professor of theology at the Solesmes Monastery, in 1893, prior at the Benedictine monastery of Liguge, and in 1898, abbot at St.- Wandrille. When the religious orders were banned from France, he moved to Belgium. In 1904 he was appointed by Pope Pius X president of the publication committee of the Editio Vaticana. - Died at Conques, Belgium, Dec. 8, 1923.

in 1861 - Clara Schuman performed the premier of Johannes Brahms, Handel Variations in B flat major, in Hamburg.

in 1863 - Pietto Mascagni, famous Italian composer, is born at Livorno.

His father was a baker who wished him to continue in that trade, but yielded to his son's determination to study music. Thanks to aid from an uncle, he was able to take some music lessons with Soffredini in Livorno and then to attend the Milan Conservatory, where he studied with Ponchielli and Saladino (1882). However, he became impatient with school discipline, and was dismissed from the Conservatory in 1884.

He then was active as a double bass player in the orchestra of the Teatro dal Verme in Milan. After touring as a conductor with operetta troupes, he taught music in Cerignola, Puglia. He composed industriously; in 1888 he sent the manuscript of his 1-act opera Cavalleria rusticana to the music publisher Sonzogno for a competition, and won 1st prize.

The opera was performed at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on May 17,1890, with sensational success; the dramatic story of village passion, and Mascagni's emotional score, laden with luscious music, combined to produce an extraordinary appeal to opera lovers. The short opera made the tour of the world stages with amazing rapidity, productions being staged all over Europe and America with neverfailing success; the opera was usually presented in 2 parts, separated by an "intermezzo sinfonico" (which became a popular orchestral number performed separately).

Cavalleria rusticana marked the advent of the operatic style known as verismo, in which stark realism was the chief aim and the dramatic development was condensed to enhance the impressions. When, 2 years later, another "veristic" opera, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, was taken by Sonzogno, the 2 operas became twin attractions on a single bill. Ironically, Mascagni could never duplicate or even remotely approach the success of his first production, although he continued to compose industriously and opera houses all over the world were only too eager to stage his successive operas. Thus, his opera Le Maschere was produced on Jan. 17,1901, at 6 of the most important Italian opera houses simultaneously (Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Venice, Verona); it was produced 2 days later in Naples.

Mascagni himself conducted the premiere in Rome. But the opera failed to fire the imagination of the public; it was produced in a revised form in Turin 15 years later (June 7, 1916), but was not established in the repertoire even in Italy. In 1902 he made a tour of the U.S. conducting his Cavalleria rusticana and other operas, but, owing to mismanagement, the visit proved a fiasco; a South American tour in 1911 was more successful. He also appeared frequently as a conductor of symphonic concerts.

In 1890 he was made a Knight of the Crown of Italy; in 1929 he was elected a member of the Academy. At various times he also was engaged in teaching; from 1895 to 1902 he was director of the Rossini Conservatory, in Pesaro. His last years were darkened by the inglorious role that he had played as an ardent supporter of the Fascist regime, so that he was rejected by many of his old friends. It was only after his death that his errors of moral judgment were forgiven; his centennial was widely celebrated in Italy in 1963. D. Stivender edited and translated his autobiography into English (N.Y., 1975). – Died at Rome, Aug. 2, 1945.

in 1927 - Helen (Josephine) Watts, admired Welsh contralto, is born at Milford Haven.
She was a student of Caroline Hatchard and Frederick Jackson at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She began her career singing in the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and the BBCChorus in London. Her first appearance as a soloist was in 1953.

In 1955 she made her first appearance at the London Promenade Concerts singing Bach arias under Sargent's direction. Thereafter she distinguished herself as a concert artist, appearing in principal European and North American music centers.

She also pursued an operatic career. In 1958 she made her operatic debut as Didymus in Theodora with the Handel Opera Society at the Camden Festival, and continued to appear with the Society until 1964. In 1964 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as the 1st Maid in Elektra and toured Russia with the English Opera Group as Britten's Lucretia. She made her first appearance at London's Covent Garden as the 1st Norn in Gotterdammerung in 1965, and continued to sing there until 1971.

In 1966 she made her U.S. debut in Delius' A Mass of Life in N.Y.She sang Mistress Quickly at her first appearance with the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff in 1969, where she was a leading member of the company until 1983. In 1978 she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. While she had success in opera, she particularly excelled as a concert artist. Her concert repertoire extended from Bach to the masters of the 20th century.

in 1949 - Tom Waits, idiosyncatic and effective American songwriter and performer, is born at Pomona, Calif.
Waits began his career playing in Los Angeles clubs as a singer, pianist, and guitarist, sometimes with his group, Nocturnal Emissions. After being signed by Frank Zappa's manager in 1972, he produced his first record album, Closing Time, in 1973. He slowly rose from cultdom to stardom through such songs as "01'55," "Shiver Me Timbers," "Diamonds on My Windshield," and "The Piano Has Been Drinking." Other noteworthy albums of this period include Nighthawks at the Diner (1975) and Heartattack & Vine(1980).

He made a number of recordings for the Asylum label, then switched to Island. With the album Swordfishtrombones (1983), he expanded his accompaniment to include a broad spectrum of exotic instruments. Waits wrote the score for Francis Ford Coppola's film One from the Heart in 1982, and later made the concert movie Big Time (1987). He also collaborated with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, on the stage show Frank's Wild Years in 1987, which in- 3830 eludes the pastiches "Temptation" and "Innocent When You Dream."

In 1993 he created a performance work, The Black Rider, in collaboration with Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs. Among artists who have performed his music are Bette Midler, Crystal Gayle, Bruce Springsteen, The Eagles, and The Manhattan Transfer. He also made frequent appearances as a film and stage actor. Waits is a jazz songwriter who regards the beatniks of the 1950s as his primary inspiration. His imaginative lyrics are full of slang and focus on the sad characters who populate cheap bars and motels. He accompanies his gravelly voice and delivery with rough instrumentation, but always with sensitive musicianship and ironic pathos.

in 1960 - Clara Haskil dies at age 65. Jewish Swiss classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire. her playing was marked by a purity of tone and phrasing that may have come from her skill as a violinist. Transparency and sensitive inspiration were other hallmarks of her style. She played as a soloist under the baton of such conductors as Stokowski, Karajan, Beecham, Solti, Barbirolli, Boult, Jochum, Sawallisch, Kempe, Szell, Celibidache, Klemperer, Rosbaud, Monteux, Cluytens, Paray, Markevitch, Giulini, Ansermet, Münch, Kubelík, Fricsay and Inghelbrecht, among many others

in 1961 - Frankie Vaughan scored his second and last UK No.1 with 'Tower Of Strength' a song written by Burt Bacharach.

in 1962 - Kirsten Flagstad dies at age 67. Norwegian opera singer, one of the greatest Wagnerian dramatic, sopranos of the 20th century. A restrained and expressive stage performer, she was admired internationally for her voice's sheer tonal beauty, power, stamina, and consistency of line and tone.

in 1963 - The Beatles second album 'With The Beatles' started a 21-week run at No.1 on the UK album chart. It replaced their first album 'Please Please me' which had been at the top of the charts since it's release 30 weeks previously. Also today, all four Beatles appeared on BBC TV's 'Juke Box Dury'. Some of the songs The Beatles judged were ‘Kiss Me Quick’ by Elvis Presley, ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’ by the Swinging Blue Jeans. ‘Did You Have a Happy Birthday’ by Paul Anka and ‘Where Have You Been All My Life’ by Gene Vincent.

in 1963 - The Singing Nun started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Dominique', it reached No.7 on the UK chart. The song sold over 1.5 million copies in the US, winning a Grammy Award for the year's best Gospel song.

in 1964 - Beach Boy Brian Wilson married Marilyn Rovell in L.A. The couple divorced in 1979. Marilyn and her sister and cousin were in a group, the Honeys, who were produced by Brian Wilson. Marilyn and Brian had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy, who became members of Wilson Phillips.

in 1964 - On his first tour of the UK Jerry Lee Lewis with The Yardbirds, Twinkle and The Quite Five appeared at The Town Hall In Birmingham.

in 1967 - Otis Redding went into the studio to record '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay'. The song went on to be his biggest hit. Redding didn't see its release; he was killed three days later in a plane crash.

in 1967 - The Beatles Apple boutique opened its doors. The store closed seven months later when all the goods were given away free to passers by.

in 1968 - The Beatles 'White Album' started a seven-week run at No.1 on the UK chart. The double set was the first on the Apple label and featured 'Back In The USSR', 'Dear Prudence', and the Harrison song 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.'

in 1968 - Noel Akchote (French guitarist) is born.
in 1969 - The Byrds appeared at the Senior High school gym. Baldwyn, Mississippi.
in 1971 - Genesis supported by Roxy Music appeared at The Hobbits Garden, Wimbledon, England.
in 1971 - Wings release their 1st album "Wild Life".
in 1973 - Damien Rice (Irish singer/songwriter; Juniper/solo) is born.

in 1974 - Barry White was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'You're The First, The Last, My Everything', the singers first UK No.1. Originally written in the 1950's as a country song with the title 'You're My First, You're My Last, My In-Between.'

in 1974 - Carl Douglas started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Kung Fu Fighting'. The song was recorded in 10 minutes, had started out as a B-side and went on to sell over 10 million.

in 1977 - Dominic Howard (UK drummer; Muse) is born

in 1977 - Peter Carl Goldmark dies at age 71. Hungarian-born, American engineer who, during his time with Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the long-playing (LP) microgroove 33-1/3 rpm vinyl phonograph discs which defined home audio for two generations, Peter's vinyl long playing records remained the standard in the music industry until the CD replaced the LP in the late 1980s. In addition to his work on the LP record, and many other researches, Peter developed a technology for color television, using a rapidly rotating color wheel that alternated transmission in red, green and blue, transmitting on 343 lines. The color wheel system continued to be used for scientific research for several more decades, including the color lunar surface TV cameras during all the 1970s NASA Apollo moon landings.On November 22nd 1977, President Jimmy Carter presented Goldmark with the National Medal of Science "For contributions to the development of the communication sciences for education, entertainment, culture and human service".

in 1979 - The Police had their second UK No.1 single with 'Walking on the Moon', taken from their second album 'Reggatta De Blanc'. The video for the song was filmed at Kennedy Space Center interspersed with NASA footage.

in 1980 - Darby Crash Bobby Pyn/Jan Paul Beahm dies at age 22. American punk-rock singer, and co-founder of the exteme punk band The Germs, who for a while dominated the L.A. punk scene. They started out as "Sophisti**** and the Revlon Spam Queens" and they can be seen in the 1981 film The Decline of Western Civilization. He and The Germs are also the subject of the 2007 biopic film "What We Do Is Secret" which stars Shane West as Darby Crash. Darby overdosed on heroin in a suicide pact with close friend Casey Cola, who ended up surviving.

in 1984 - A benefit concert for Ethiopia was held at The Royal Albert Hall, London, featuring, Nick Heyward, Feargal Sharkey, Julian Lennon, Mike Rutherford and others.

in 1985 - Mr Mister started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Broken Wings', a UK No.4 hit.
in 1986 - Jonathan Gill (UK singer; JLS) is born.
in 1987 - Thomas Fiss (US singer; Varsity Fanclub/solo) is born.
in 1987 - Aaron Carter (US singer) is born.

in 1987 - Richard "Ricky" Taylor dies at age 47. US baritone vocalist; founder member of The Manhattans back in 1962. Their first single was "For The First Time", released in 1964 by Carnival Records, In 1969the group received the award "Most Promising Group" by NATRA. After a few chart hits they enjoyed their first No.1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1976 with "Kiss and Say Goodbye" .

in 1987 - Richard Taylor from The Manhattans died aged 47. Scored the 1976 US No.1 & UK No.4 single 'Kiss And Say Goodbye'.

in 1990 - Dee Clark (Delectus Clark) dies at age 57. US singer born in Blytheville, Arkansas, and moved to Chicago in 1941. He first recorded in 1952 as a member of the Hambone Kids, scoring an R&B hit with the song "Hambone." In 1953, he joined the Goldentones, who later became the Kool Gents then The Delegates. In 1957 Dee went solo, his biggest hit was "Raindrops," this was followed by "Don't Walk Away From Me," "I'm Going Back to School" "Crossfire Time" and "Just Keep It Up". In 1975 he had another hit "Ride a Wild Horse" which also made the UK Singles Chart. After which Dee mostly performed on the oldies circuit. In 1987 he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed and with a mild speech impediment, but he continued to perform until his death.

in 1991 - George Michael and Elton John were at No.1 in the UK with a live version of 'Don't Let The Sun Go down On Me', (a hit for Elton in 1974). All proceeds from the hit went to aids charities.

in 1991 - Michael Jackson started a 7 week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Black Or White', his 12th solo No.1, also a No.1 in the UK.

in 1991 - Two weeks after Freddie Mercury's death 'Queen's Greatest Hits II' started a four week run at No.1 on the UK album chart

in 1991 - U2 went to No.1 on the US album charts with 'Achtung Baby'. Featuring 'One', Zoo Station', 'The Fly' and 'Even Better Than The Real Thing'.

in 1992 - Mariah Carey's MTV Unplugged EP became the first Sony Minidisc to be released in the US.

in 1993 - Manic Street Preachers co-manager Phillip Hall died from cancer. Hall was a former Record Mirror journalist and had also worked in PR for Stiff Records. Represented many acts including The Stone Roses, The Pogues, James, The Waterboys, The Beautiful South and Radiohead.

in 1996 - Australian singer Peter Andre scored his second No.1 UK single when 'I Feel You'. Andre scored a further 4 Top 10 hits by the end of 1998.

in 1996 - Bush went to No. 1 on the US album chart with 'Razorblade Suitcase'.

in 1996 - Toni Braxton started a 11 week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Un- Break My Heart'. Written by Dianne Warren it gave Braxton her second US solo No.1, a No.2 hit in the UK.

in 1997 - Shane MacGowen spent the night in police cells after being arrested in Liverpool. He was charged after throwing a mike stand into the crowd and injuring a fan.

in 1997 - The future of Black Grape was uncertain after Shaun Ryder sacked the rest of the band during a row backstage at a gig at the Doncaster Dome.

in 1997 - Barry S(helley) Brook, eminent American musicologist, dies at N.Y. He studied piano privately with Mabel Asnis, then entered the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a student of Louise Culver Strunsky in piano, of Hugh Ross in conducting, and of Sessions in composition.

He subsequently studied at the City Coll. of the City University of N.Y. (B.S., social sciences, 1939), then took courses in musicology with Lang at Columbia University (M.A., 1942, with the dissertation Clement Janequin). From 1942 to 1945 he was a member of the U.S. Air Corps. Selecting as his major subject French music history, he went to Paris, where he studied at the Sorbonne (Ph.D., 1959, with the disseration La Symphonie franqaise dans la seconde moitiedu XVIII siecle).

In 1945 he became a prof, at Queens College of the City University of N.Y. He also was a lecturer at Brooklyn College (1945-46) and a professor at Hunter College (1954) of the City University of N.Y. In 1967 he became a professor of music and executive officer of the Ph.D. program at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of N.Y, leaving these posts in 1989 to become director of the Univ/s Center for Music Research and Documentation. He also taught at the Institut de Musicologie at the University of Paris (1967-68), the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y (1973), the Univ. of Adelaide (1974), the Juilliard School in N.Y (from 1977), the Centre National de laRecherche Scientifique in Paris (1983), and the University of Ala. (1987). He served as editor in chief of RILM [Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale] Abstracts of Music Literature (from 1966), The Symphony 1720-1840 (61 vols., N.Y, 1979-86), and French Opera in the 17th and 18th Centuries (75 vols., N.Y, 1984 et seq.); with F. Degrada and H. Hucke, he was general editor of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Complete Works/Opere Complete (18 vols., N.Y, 1986 et seq.).

In 1954-55 he held a Ford Foundation fellowship, in 1958-59 a Fulbright Research scholarship, and in 1961-62 and 1966-67 Guggenheim fellowships. In 1965 he became the first American to receive the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Assn. of England, in 1972 he was made a Chevalier de 1'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, in 1978 he was awarded the Smetana Medal of Czechoslovakia, and in 1989 he became the first non-Scandinavian musicologist to be elected to membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 1997 he was made an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Brooks especially distinguished himself as an authority on 17th and 18th century music and on musical bibliography. - Born at N.Y., Nov. 1,1918.

in 1998 - John Addison dies at age 78. British composer born in Chobham, Surrey, and trained at Wellington College, Berkshire and at the age of sixteen entered the Royal College of Music. He is best known for his film scores. He won an Academy Award for the music to the 1963 film, Tom Jones, BAFTA Award for A Bridge Too Far and Grammy Award in the Best Original Score from a Motion Picture or Television Show category for Tom Jones. He also composed the music for A Taste of Honey, Torn Curtain, Smashing Time, Sleuth, Swashbuckler and the television series Centennial. He also composed the theme music for the television series Murder, She Wrote, for which he won an Emmy.

in 1999 - Kenny Baker dies at age 78. British trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn player, vocalist, bandleader, arranger, and composer, born in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire; as a teenager before the war, he met and began performing with the already well-known jazz musician George Chisholm. He went on to play with the likes of Manley's Orchestra, Jack Parnell, Ted Heath Band, as well as leading his own band who often performed on the first regular jazz show on British radio, the BBC Light Programme series 'Let's Settle For Music'. He was one of a handful of British jazz stars of the traditional and swing era who seemed to offer genuinely international jazz credentials and was presented with the best trumpet player title for the third time at the BT British jazz awards in 1999. He was also awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1999.

in 2003 - Britney Spears was at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘In The Zone’ the singer's fourth US No.1 album. The singer broke her own record from being the first female artist to have three albums enter the US chart at No.1 to being the first female artist to have 4 albums enter at No.1 consecutively.

in 2003 - Outkast went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Hey Ya.'

in 2005 - The MBE medal that John Lennon returned to the Queen was found in a royal vault at St James' Palace. Lennon returned his medal in November, 1969 with a letter accompanying saying, "Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon." Historians were calling for the medal to be put on public display.

in 2004 - Frederick Fennell dies at age 90. American conductor born in Cleveland, Ohio and owned his first drum set at age ten. In the John Adams High School Orchestra, he performed as the kettledrummer and served as the band's drum major. As a student, he organized the first University of Rochester marching band for the football team and held indoor concerts with the band after the football season for ten years. He went on to make frequent appearances guest conducting at such ensembles as the Boston Pops Orchestra 1949 to 1978, the United States Marine Band, London Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. In 1997, he became the first civilian to conduct an entire concert with the United States Marine Band; and in July 1998 he repeated this at a concert in the Kennedy Center celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Marine Band. He wrote several books including Time and the Winds, a Short History of the Use of Wind Instruments in the Orchestra, Band and the Wind Ensemble, 1954; The Drummer’s Heritage, a Collection of Popular Airs and Official U.S. Army Music for Fifes and Drums, 1956; and The Wind Ensemble, 1988.

in 2004 - Jerry Scoggins dies at age 93. American singer; he sang and played guitar on the Dallas radio in the early 30's, in 1936 he formed his own group, the Cass County Kids. Ten years later, country music and cowboy legend Gene Autry changed their name to the Cass County Boys when he hired them to work on his Melody Ranch radio program. In 1962 he sing the theme song for a new sitcom called The Beverly Hillbillies with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs playing guitar and banjo. He came out of retirement to sing the theme to the 1993 film version of the series.

in 2006 - Jay McShann dies at age 90. American blues and swing pianist, bandleader, and singer; in Kansas City, Missouri in 1936, he set up his own big band, which featured Charlie Parker, Bernard Anderson, Ben Webster and Walter Brown, their most popular recording was "Confessin' the Blues." In 1945, Jimmy Witherspoon started recording with him and fronting McShann's band, they had a hit in 1949 with "Ain't Nobody's Business." He continued to perform well into his 80's. Crime-fiction writer Elmore Leonard featured Jay McShann as a character in his 2005 novel, The Hot Kid.

in 2007 - Ray Charles Plaza was opened in Albany, Georgia, with a revolving, bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano.

in 2008 - Leona Lewis went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Run’ which became the fastest-selling digital-only track. Take That went to No.1 on the UK album after selling over 432,000 copies of their new album The Circus. Britney Spears' album Circus, released on the same day as Take That's album entered the chart at number four.

in 2008 - Take That started a five week run at No.1 on the UK album chart with ‘The Circus’ the group’s fifth studio album.

in 2008 - Dennis Yost dies at age 65. American lead singer with of the 1960s group the Classics IV; The Classics IV moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1967 and were discovered by Bill Lowery who produced their first national hit in 1968 with "Spooky", it made No.3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S., and No.46 in the UK. They changed the band name to Classics IV Featuring Dennis Yost and enjoyed two Top 10 hits, "Stormy" and "Traces" and a Top Twenty hit, "Everyday With You Girl" in 1969. They changed their name again, to Dennis Yost and the Classics IV, and had one last hit, "What Am I Crying For?" in 1972.

in 2010 - Kari Tapio/Kari Tapani Jalkanen dies at age 65. Finnish schlager singer born in Suonenjoki. In the 60s he performed in his home town Pieksämäki with the local bands ER-Quartet and Jami & The Noisemakers. After his first single "Tuuli kääntyköön"/"Niskavuoren nuorimmainen" in 1972 Kari performed in Ilkka "Danny" Lipsanen's show. In 1976 he finally broke through with his single "Laula kanssain"/"Sing With Me" which was followed by "Viisitoista kesää" (a Finnish cover of Living Next Door to Alice) and "Kaipuu"/"Desire". In later years "Olen suomalainen"/"I am Finnish", "Myrskyn jälkeen"/"After the Storm", "En pyydä paljon"/"I Don't Ask For Much" and the newest "Paalupaikka"/"Pole Position", among others, have been his most popular songs. In 2003 he waas awarded with the Iskelmä-Finlandia award (died of a heart attack) b. November 22nd 1945.

in 2011 - Bob Burnett dies at age 71; a guitar-playing tenor andmember of folk group the Highwaymen.
Bob Burnett, who became a lawyer, was one of the freshmen at Connecticut's Wesleyan University who formed the group, which had a significant effect on the early '60s folk scene.

Although the group had a significant impact on the folk scene in the early 1960s — turning "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "All My Trials" into folk standards — the Highwaymen disbanded in 1964 when Bob Burnett and two other members decided to attend graduate school.

"The original Highwaymen, along with the Kingston Trio and later, Peter Paul and Mary, were among those responsible for popularizing American music — call it folk, blues, country, whatever," Kris Kristofferson told The Times when Dave Fisher, lead singer of the Highwaymen, died last year.

At first they called themselves the Clansmen, a reflection of the Scottish and Irish influences in their repertoire. As students on a campus in the Northeast in the late 1950s, they were unaware of the name's racial connotation in the South.

Once their harmonizing caught on, their manager suggested the name the Highwaymen, in honor of the early 1900s poem by Alfred Noyes.

They followed their first hit record with "Cotton Fields," which broke into the Top 20. Their version is credited with reviving what was then an obscure song by folk-blues musician Leadbelly. It was their last major success.

The Highwaymen regularly performed in Greenwich Village at the height of the folk music scene and recorded eight albums before parting amicably.

The other founding members were Chan Daniels, who died in 1975; Steve Butts, who earned a doctorate and became an academic administrator at the college level; and Steve Trott, who eventually became a judge for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

When a group of country music superstars — Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kristofferson — started performing as the Highwaymen, the original group filed suit.

The dust-up was quickly resolved when Jennings suggested that Burnett and his bandmates open for the country quartet in 1990 in Los Angeles. The folk-music Highwaymen agreed, and the renewed exposure and recognition led them to perform around the country over the following two decades.
He majored in political science at Wesleyan while establishing school pole-vault records and earning a bachelor's degree in 1962. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Burnett worked as a trusts lawyer for several banks before retiring from Bank of America.
He temporarily left the Highwaymen in 1962 to serve in the Army. At basic training in Fort Dix, N.J., he met the colonel's daughter, Kathleen Cullis; they married in 1964.
Robert Burnett was born Feb. 7, 1940, in Providence and grew up in Mystic, Conn.

in 2011 - Charlie Russell dies at age 74. American country music DJ.
Charlie Russell is a country music DJ for CJCJ out of Woodstock, New Brunswick. Best known for his 1975 album The Bricklin, featuring some of his own satirical songs in which he pokes fun at the Canadian Postal Service and Canadian Parliament. The title track song was a Top 20 country hit in 1975.

Russell also created and broadcast one of Canada’s first weekly hit charts dedicated solely to country music. His signature song Home Folks was recorded by George Hamilton IV. Russell is also an inductee into the New Brunswick Hall of Fame. Inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003. - Born at Miramichi, New Brunswick, July 11, 1937.

in 1744 - Pierre Joseph Candeille, French singer and composer, father of (Amelie) Julie Candeille, is born at Estaires. He received his training at the song school of the collegiate church of St. Pierre in Lille. After settling in Paris, he was a basse taille in the chorus of the Opera (1767-71; 1773-81) and of the Concert Spirituel (1769-71; 1773-81), and later was chorus master of the Opera (1800-02; 1804-05). He wrote about 20 stage works, of which the most successful was the opera Castor et Pollux (Paris, June 14, 1791). He also wrote four syms. and sacred vocal pieces. - Died at Chantilly, April 24, 1827.

in 1853 - Jonas Chickering, American piano manufacturer, dies at Boston.
He worked as an apprentice to John Gould, a New Ipswich, N.H., cabinetmaker before settling in Boston in 1818, where he worked as an apprentice to the cabinetmaker James Barker. In 1819 he was apprenticed to the piano maker John Osborne, with whom he worked until 1823 when he founded a partnership with the English piano maker James Stewart, who had been active with Osborne.

The firm was organized as Stewart & Chickering, and continued until Stewart returned to England in 1826. John Mackay became active in the firm with Chickering in 1830. The firm became known as Jonas Chickering & Co. in 1837. After Mackay's son, William H. Mackay, joined the firm, the enterprise was known as Chickering and Mackays from 1839 until the death of the elder Mackay in 1841.

In 1842 the firm became Chickering & Mackay, but that same year the younger Mackay sold his interest to Chickering. By 1840 the firm was the leading American manufacturer of grand pianos. In 1843 it introduced and patented the one-piece cast-iron frame for the grand piano. The Chickering factory was destroyed by fire in 1852, but Chickering commenced rebuilding.

After his death the following year, his eldest son, Thomas E. Chickering (b. Boston, Oct. 22, 1824; d. there, Feb. 14, 1871), became president of the firm, a post he held until his death. His second son, Frank (Charles Francis) Chickering (b. Boston, Jan. 20,1827; d. N.Y., March 23,1891), settled in N.Y. in 1859 to oversee the firm's business interests there. His third son, George Harvey Chickering (b. Boston, April 18, 1830; d. Milton, Mass., Nov. 17, 1899), served as manager of the Boston factory. The firm received the gold medal of the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1867 and Frank Chickering was awarded the Imperial Cross of the Legion de'honneur.

In 1878 P.J. Gildemeester became a member of the firm, and in 1886 he became a partner. During the last years of the century, C.H.W. Foster and George L. Nichols joined the Chickering brothers in running the firm. It became a division of the American Piano Co. in 1908. In 1927 the factory was moved to East Rochester, N.Y. In 1932 the Aeolian American Corp. took control of the firm. In 1985 the Wurlitzer company took over the firm. - Born at Mason, N.H., April 5, 1797.

in 1900 - Max Abraham, German music publisher, dies at Leipzig. He became a partner of the Bureau de Musique von C. R Peters in Leipzig in 1863, and in 1867 he inaugurated the famous Edition Peters. - Born at Danzig, July 3, 1831.

in 1907 - Tony (Louis Alexandre) Aubin, French composer, conductor, and pedagogue, is born at Paris. He studied harmony with Samuel-Rousseau, counterpoint with N. Galon, and composition with Dukas at the Paris Conservatory (1925-30), winning the Prix de Rome with his cantata Acteon in 1930. In 1934-35 he studied conducting with Gaubert. In 1937 he became artistic director of the RTF station Paris Mondial. He became a conductor with the French radio in 1945, where he remained until 1960. He also taught composition at the Paris Conservatory from 1945 to 1977. In 1970 he became a member of the Academic des Beaux- Arts. Aubin was a pragmatic composer who cultivated an eclectic idiom. - Died at Paris, Sept. 21, 1981.

in 1909 - Cleo(patra) Brown, jazz pianist, singer is born at Meridian, Miss. She was a creative two-handed pianist who was admired by Dave Brubeck, but whose singing overshadowed her instrumental ability. Her brother, Everett, was a pianist; their father was the pastor of the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Meridan. In 1919 when the family moved to Chicago, Cleo studied music and began playing piano for a touring show. During the late 1920s she played several residencies in and around Chicago, and also gigged with various bands. In 1932, while playing and singing in a local rumba band, she was signed by Texas Guinan and began appearing regularly on Chicago radio programs. She then had her own series on WABC, led her own group at Three Deuces, Chicago, made extensive recordings, and appeared regularly in N.Y. and Hollywood during the late 1930s. After working as a piano teacher, she was taken seriously ill and was in a Calif, sanatorium from late 1940 until 1942. In the late 1940s, she moved to Los Angeles, making her last jazz recording in 1949. In 1973, she settled in Denver, where she found religion and focussed on writing and performing hymns and gospel material under the name of C. Patra Brown. She made a late-life appearance on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz series in 1987. DlSC.: The Feminine Touch (1953); Living in the Afterglow. - Died at Denver, Colo., April 15,1995.

in 1925 - Sammy Davis Jr., dynamic American singer, actor, and dancer, is born at N.Y.
A nightclub entertainer with a background in vaudeville who could sing, dance, act, play several instruments, and do impressions, Davis found success in recordings, film, television, and personal appearances during a career that lasted virtually his entire life. As an African-American, he broke down racial restrictions while simultaneously challenging assumptions about what a black performer should be.

As such he was both a throwback to an earlier time in entertainment and a precursor of a less race-conscious future. Davis's parents, Sammy Davis Sr. and Elvera Sanchez Davis, were members of Holiday in Dixieland, a vaudeville troupe led by Will Mastin. Davis began appearing onstage with the troupe when scarcely out of infancy. His parents separated when he was two, and he remained with his father in the act, which diminished during the Depression to a trio of himself, his father, and Mastin.

He made his film debut in the short Rufus for President in September 1933. Davis was drafted in 1943 and served in the army until 1945, when he rejoined the Will Mastin Trio. After World War II, the group, which Davis dominated with his singing, dancing, and impressions, broke into the upper echelon of nightclubs and hotels. Davis was signed as a solo act to Capitol Records and made his first recordings for the label in 1949. In 1954 he joined Decca Records, first reaching the charts in August with "Hey There" (music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross).

He was appearing with the Mastin Trio at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas when, on Nov. 19, 1954, he was severely injured in an automobile accident, losing his left eye. Nevertheless, he was back performing in January 1955. Davis's career took off in 1955. His album Starring Sammy DavisJr. topped the charts in June, he had a Top Ten single in "Something's Gotta Give" (music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer), followed by Top 40 hits with "Love Me or Leave Me" (music by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn) and "That Old Black Magic" (music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer), and the LP Justfor Lovers reached the Top Ten in the fall. At the end of the year he made his adult acting debut playing Fletcher Henderson in the film biography The Benny Goodman Story.

He then made his Broadway debut starring in the musical Mr. Wonderful (N.Y., March 22, 1956), which ran 383 performances. In 1957 the Will Mastin Trio broke up, leaving Davis to work as a solo performer. On Jan. 10, 1958,he married Loray White, a singer; they divorced on April 23,1959. He made his television acting debut on an episode of G. E. Theatre on Oct. 5, 1958, and the following month appeared in the film Anna Lucasta. In July 1959 he portrayed Sportin' Life and sang "It Ain't Necessarily So" (music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin) in a film version of Porgy and Bess. A friend of Frank Sinatra's and member of Sinatra's "Rat Pack" of fellow entertainers, he appeared in a series of films with them, beginning in August 1960 with Ocean's Eleven and continuing with Sergeants Three (1962)and Robinand the 7 Hoods (1964).

On Nov. 13, 1960, Davis married Swedish actress Mai Britt; they had one daughter and adopted two sons. They divorced on Dec. 19, 1968. Having signed to Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records label, Davis returned to the Top 40 in the fall of 1962 with "What Kind of Fool Am I?" (music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley), from the musical Stop theWorld-I Want to Get Off, and his album What Kind of Fool Am I and Other Show- Stoppers spent five months in the charts. By now Davis was appearing regularly in motion pictures, only some of which featured his singing. One was the West German production Die Dreigroschenoper, released in the U.S. in March 1963 under its English title The Threepenny Opera, in which he played the Street Singer and sang "Mack the Knife" (music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Bertolt Brecht).

He starred in his first television special, S. D. and theWonderful World of Children, on Nov. 25,1963, and reached the Top 40 at the end of the year with "The Shelter of Your Arms" (music and lyrics by Jerry Samuels). Davis returned to Broadway with the musical Golden Boy(N.Y.,Oct. 20, 1964),which ran 569 performances. In 1965 he appeared in another TV special and made an album, Our Shining Hour,with Count Basie. He had his own television series, TheS.D. Jr. Show, from January to April 1966, and in June starred in the film drama A Man Called Adam, playing a jazz musician. He reached the Top 40 with the spoken-word recording "Don't Blame the Children" (music by H. B. Barnum, lyrics by Ivan Reeve) in 1967. In 1968 he performed Golden Boy in London and appeared in the comic spy film Salt and Pepper with fellow Rat Pack member Peter Lawford; they did a sequel, One MoreTime, in 1970.At the end of 1968 he scored his biggest hit single since 1955 with "I've Gotta Be Me" (music and lyrics by Walter Marks), which topped the easy-listening charts. He made a musical appearance in the film version of the musical Sweet Charity, released in January 1969.

On May 11,1970,Davis wed dancer Altovise Gore, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life; they later adopted a son. Davis was hospitalized with cirrhosis of the liver in 1971, but he recovered. Signing to MGM Records, he released "The Candy Man" (music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley) in December 1971;it hit #1 in June 1972and sold a million copies. The LP S. D. Jr. Now,on which it appeared, spent six months in the charts. He appeared in the concert film Save the Children, released in September 1973, and the same month began making regular appearances on the TV variety series NBC Follies, which ran through December.

In April 1974 he was back on the N.Y. stage in his own revue, Sammy on Broadway. He hosted a syndicated TV talk show, Sammy and Company, during the 1975-76 and 1976-77 seasons. In August 1978 he appeared at Lincoln Center in N.y. in a production of Stop the World-I Want to Get Off that was filmed and released as Sammy Stops the World in December. Davis was less active in the 1980s, suffering a recurrence of his liver problems in 1983 and having to undergo hip replacement surgery in 1985. But he was working more frequently by the late 1980s, appearing in the films Moon Over Parador (1988) and Tap (1989), and touring internationally with Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli. He contracted throat cancer in 1989 and died of it in 1990 at age 64 at Beverly Hills, Calif., May 16, 1990.

in 1936 - William Crane Carl, influential American organist and pedagogue, dies at N.Y. He studied with Samuel P. Warren. In 1882 he became organist of the First Presbyterian Church in Newark. After further training with Guilmant in Paris (c. 1890), he went to N.Y. as organist of the Old First Presbyterian Church in 1892. He also organized the Guilmant Organ School in 1899. Carl toured throughout the U.S. and overseas as a distinguished recitalist in an expansive repertoire. He edited various volumes. of organ music, several of which include his own transcriptions. He also published the organ method Master- Studies for the Organ (1907). - Born at Bloomfield, N.J., March 2,1865.

in 1939 - JerryButler, one of the most engaging soul music singer-songwriters to emerge in the late 1950s, si born at Sunflower, Miss. After moving to Chicago with his family at the age of three, Jerry Butler began singing in gospel groups as a child. He sang with Curtis Mayfield in the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, and during 1957, he and Mayfield joined The Roosters. By 1958, they had changed their name to The Impressions and signed with VeeJay Records. Featuring Butler's soothing baritone, The Impressions' first single, "For Your Precious Love" (coauthored by Butler) became a smash R&B and pop hit.

Leaving The Impressions after the solitary hit, Jerry Butler scored a top R&B and pop hit in late 1960 with "He Will Break Your Heart," cowritten by Butler and Mayfield. Butler and Mayfield also cowrote the nearsmash R&B and major pop hits "Find Another Girl" and 'Tm-a Telling You." With the success of Butler's vocals on Henry Mancini's "Moon River" and Burt Bacharach's "Make It Easy on Yourself" (both major crossover hits), he was established as a purveyor of smooth soul ballads on the American supper club circuit. Subsequent hits included "Need to Belong" and "Let It Be Me," recorded with Betty Everett.

Butler's moderate hit, "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore," was one of the first Randy Newman songs to make the charts and Butler later wrote "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)" for and with Otis Redding. With the demise of VeeJay Records in 1966, Jerry Butler moved to Mercury Records, where he worked with songwriter-producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The collaboration resulted in a number of hits for Butler through 1969. These included the top R&B hits "Hey Western Union Man" and "Only the Strong Survive" (also a smash pop hit), as well as the hits "Never Give You Up," "Moody Woman," and "What's the Use of Breaking Up." His 1969 album The Iceman Cometh, the most successful of his career, contained three of the hits and provided Butler with the "Iceman" nickname, denoting his cool sophisticated style.

Jerry Butler stayed with Mercury Records when Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff moved to Columbia Records in 1970. He established the Songwriters' Workshop in Chicago and recorded an album with Gene Chandler. With Brenda Lee Eager, Butler scored a major R&B hit with "Power of Love" and his last major pop/R&B hit with "Ain't Understanding Mellow." "If It's Real What I Feel" and "One Night Affair" also became R&B hits on Mercury in the early 1970s. Butler subsequently switched to Motown Records, where he achieved a R&B hit with "I Wanna Do It to You" and recorded two albums with Thelma Houston. In 1978, he reunited with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff at Philadelphia International Records for two albums and the major rhythm-and-blues hit "(I'm Just Thinking About) Cooling Out." Elected as a Cook County (Chicago) commissioner in 1986, Jerry Butler returned to recording in the 1990s with Time and Faith and Simply Beautiful.

in 1956 - Edgar Leslie Bainton, English composer and pedagogue, dies at Sydney, Australia age 76. He studied piano and composition at the Royal College of Music in London with Davies and Stanford. He taught piano and composition at the Conservatpru, of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1901 until 1914, and also was its director (1912-14). The outbreak of World War I found him in Berlin, and he was interned as an enemy alien. After the end of the War, he resumed his pedagogical activities as director of the Newcastle Conservatory. In 1934 he went to Australia and was director of the State Conservatory at Sydney until 1947. As a composer, he followed the tenets of the English national school, writing in broad diatonic expanses with a Romantic elan. His works include the operas Oithona (Glastonbury, Aug. 11, 1915) and The Pearl Tree (Sydney, May 20,1944), 3 syms. (1903-56), Before Sunrise for Voice, Chorus, and Orch. (1917), Paracelsus, symphonic poem (1921), Concerto- Fantasia for Piano and Orch. (Carnegie Award, 1917; London, Jan. 26, 1922), chamber music, and songs. - Born at London, Feb. 14, 1880.

in 1963 - Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped at gunpoint from a hotel in Lake Tahoe. He was released two days later after his father paid out the $240,000 ransom demanded by the kidnappers, who were later captured, and sentenced to long prison terms. In order to communicate with the kidnappers via a payphone the senior Sinatra carried a roll of dimes with him throughout this ordeal, which became a lifetime habit, he is said to have been buried with a roll of dimes.

in 1964 - Sandy Burnett (Brit record producer) is born.
in 1964 - James Blundell (Australian country singer) is born.
in 1965 - The Spencer Davis Group kicked off a 9-date UK tour at The Top Rank, Southampton.
in 1965 - The Rolling Stones recorded their ninth UK single ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ at RCA studios in Hollywood, California.

in 1966 - Working at Abbey Road in London, Paul McCartney overdubbed his lead vocal for ‘When I'm Sixty-Four’. Then The Beatles set about remaking a new John Lennon song ‘Strawberry Fields Forever.’

in 1967 - John Mills Sr. dies at age 78. American singer; member of the Mills Brothers, a jazz and pop vocal quartet of the 20th century producing more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies and garnered at least three dozen gold records, including songs like "Chinatown, My Chinatown", "Baby Won't You Please Come Home", "Miss Otis Regrets", "Your Nobody Till Somebody Loves You", "Sweet Georgia Brown", "My Gal Sal", "Tennessee Waltz" and so many more. They recorded with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Frank Munn, The Boswell Sisters, Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Al Jolson, Connee Boswell, Fran Frey, Tommy Dorsey, Sy Oliver & His Orchestra, Sonny Burke & His Orchestra, Milton DeLugg & His Orchestra and Count Basie's Orchestra. It all began when John Mills Sr owned a barber shop and formed a barbershop quartet, called the "Four Kings of Harmony", his sons formed The Miller Brothers in 1928, John Sr. joined them in 1934. They were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998, also in 1998 the Recording Academy recognized the Mills family's contributions to popular music with a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

in 1968 - Singer and guitarist Graham Nash left The Hollies and started work with David Crosby and Stephen Stills who went on to form Crosby Stills and Nash.

in 1969 - Higini Angles, eminent Catalonian musicologist. Dies at Rome. He studied theology and philosophy at the Seminario de Tarragona (ordained, 1912), then pursued music training with Jose Cogul (harmony), Vicente de Gilbert (harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and organ), Barbera (composition and folk song), and Pedrell (musicology and music history) in Barcelona (1913-19). In 1917 he became head of the music dept. of the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona. In 1923-24 he completed his studies with W. Gurlitt at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau and F. Ludwig at the University of Gottingen. From 1927 to 1936 he was professor of music history at the Barcelona Conservatory. In 1943 he became director of the Institute Espanol de Musicologia. In 1947 he was made director of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. He was an authority on Spanish music of the Middles Ages and the Renaissance. He published Cantigas del Rei N'Anfos el Savi (Barcelona, 1927), Historia de la musica espanola (Barcelona, 1935), La musica a Catalunya fins al segle XIII (Barcelona, 1935), La musica espanola desde la edad media hasta nuestros dias (Barcelona, 1941), L'opera di Morales e lo sviluppo della polifonia sacra spangola nel 1500 (Rome, 1954), and Studio musicologia (Rome, 1959). He ed. El Codex Musical de Las Huelgas (1927-31) and the works of J. Pujol (1927-32) and J. Cabanilles (1927-56). In 1941 he initiated the series Monuentos de la musica espanola, which publ. La musica en la corte de los Reyes Catolicos (1941-51) and the works of Morales (1952-69), Victoria (1965-69), and Cabezon (1966). - Born at Maspujols, Jan. 1, 1888.

in 1969 - Mott The Hoople appeared at Friars, Aylesbury, England.

in 1969 - Mick Jagger was quoted saying 'I don't really like singing very much, I enjoy playing the guitar more than I enjoy singing and I can't play the guitar either'.

in 1969 - On trial in Canada on drug possession charges, Jimi Hendrix told a Toronto court that he had only smoked pot four times in his life, snorted cocaine twice and took LSD no more than five times. Telling the jury that he had now 'outgrown' drugs. They find the guitarist not guilty.

in 1977 - Four people were arrested after a riot broke out when Blondie didn't arrive for a gig in Brisbane. Over 1,000 Australian fans had waited over an hour for the group to appear on stage, but the gig was cancelled due to singer Debbie Harry being unwell.

in 1979 - Rod Stewart scored his seventh UK No.1 album when his 'Greatest Hits' started a five-week run at the top of the charts.

in 1979 - Styx went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Babe', the group's only US No.1, a No.6 hit in the UK.

in 1980 - John Lennon dies at age 40. English rock musician, singer, writer, songwriter, artist, actor and peace activist born in Liverpool, who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles. John along with Paul McCartney also formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and "wrote some of the most popular music in rock and roll history". In his solo career, he wrote and recorded many songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". He also revealed his rebellious nature and wit on television, in films such as A Hard Day's Night, in books such as ''In His Own Write'', and in press conferences and interviews. (brutally shot 5 times by 25 year old Mark Chapman outside the Dakota building, New York City, where John and his wife Yoko lived).

in 1982 - Marty Robbins (Martin David Robinson) dies at age 57. American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. One of the most popular and successful country and western singers of his era, his songs were often eclectic, touching notably on an array of world music. For most of his nearly four decade career, he was rarely far from the music charts with hits such as "El Paso" and the Grammy Award winning "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife". He was named "Artist of the Decade" (1960-69) by the Academy of Country Music, was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982, and was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998 for his song "El Paso". He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6666 Hollywood Blvd. He was also a NASCAR race car driver (died due to surgical complications)

in 1984 – Razzle (Nicholas Dingley) dies at age 24. British drummer born in Royal Leamington Spa, England. He had played in UK-based bands Marionette, The **** Pigs, Demon Preacher along side of Nik Fiend of later Alien Sex Fiend fame, and The Dark, before joining the Finnish rock band Hanoi Rocks in 1982. He stayed with the band until his death. He was a huge influence upon Hanoi Rocks' music and even more so on their style. (Hanoi Rocks was on their first American tour. In a break in the tour, Razzle was out with Mötley Crüe's singer Vince Neil, when Razzle lost control of the car they were in and collided with an on coming car. He was taken to South Bay ER but was declared dead on arrival. Vince dedicated Theater of Pain, Mötley Crüe's third studio album, to Razzle).

in 1984 - Frankie Goes To Hollywood were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'The Power Of Love'. The group's third No.1 of the year and final UK No.1. This made them the first group since Gerry And The Pacemakers to have a UK No.1 with their first three singles.

in 1984 - Hall and Oates started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Out Of Touch', the duo's 6th US No.1, it made No.48 in the UK.

in 1984 - One time Coasters manager Patrick Cavanaugh was convicted of first degree murder of group member Buster Wilson whose dismembered body was discovered in Modesto, California, in 1980.

in 1984 - Vince Neil from Motley Crue was involved in a car accident in Redondo Beach, Ca, which killed Nick Dingley from Hanoi Rocks and injured two other passengers. Neil was jailed for 20 days and paid $2.6 million in compensation.

in 1986 - Kate Voegele (US singer, song-writer, guitar, piano) is born.
in 1988 - Herbert "Tubo" Rhoad US singer (Persuasions-Good news), dies at 44.
in 1988 - Rick Astley appeared at The Playhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland on a tour sponsored by the soft drinks company Vimto.

in 1990 - John Alexander, prominent American tenor; dies at Meridian,Miss. He studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory, of Music and with Robert Weede. In 1952 he made his operatic debut as Faust with the Cincinnati Opera. On Oct. 11, 1957, he appeared for the first time at the N.Y.C. Opera as Alfredo, where he sang regularly until 1977. On Dec. 19, 1961, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Ferrando, remaining on its roster for more than 25 years. In 1968 he sang Rodolfo at his Vienna State Opera debut and in 1970 Pollione at his Covent Garden debut in London. In 1973 he appeared as Don Carlos in the U.S. premiere of the French version of Verdi's opera in Boston. He also toured widely as a concert artist. He taught at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music from 1974. Alexander maintained an extensive repertory that embraced works from the bel canto era to the 20th century. - Born at Meridian, Miss., Oct. 21,1923.

in 1990 - Pony Sherrell Metcalf NY, singer, dies of heart attack.

in 1990 - Stevie B started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Because I Love You, (The Postman Song)', a No.6 hit in the UK.

in 1991 - Buck Clayton, (actually, Wilbur Dorsey), famed swing-era trumpeter, arranger, dies at N.Y.
His father played tuba and trpt. in local church orchestras. Buck began playing piano at the age of six, switched to trpt. in his early teens, and took lessons from his father. At 19 he went to Calif, for four months. After a succession of non-musical jobs he returned to Kans., completed high school studies, then returned to the West Coast. After working with various bandleaders in Los Angeles, Buck was appointed leader of Earl Dancer's Band in 1934; this 14-piece unit was heard by Teddy Weatherford, who booked the full band for a residency at the Canidrome Ballroom, in Shanghai, China, during 1935.

Weatherford occasionally played concerts with the band in Shanghai but was not a regular member of the group. Later Buck led a smaller band at the Casanova Club, Shanghai. He returned to Los Angeles in 1936 and again led his own big band, the 14 Gentlemen from Harlem; also gigged with various bandleaders including Charlie Echols. In autumn 1936, while on his way to N.Y. to join Willie Bryant's Band, Buck stopped off in Kansas City, where Count Basie persuaded him to take the trpt. place recently vacated by Hot Lips Page.

He remained with Count Basie until his Army call-up in November 1943 (except for temporary absence in mid-1942 for a tonsillectomy), was stationed for most of the time at Camp Kilmer, N.J., and played regularly with all-star service bands. He had an honorable discharge early in 1946. During this period, he did arrangements for Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Harry James, etc. In October 1946 he took part in the first national Jazz at the Philharmonic tour and subsequently played on several of Norman Grant's tours.

From 1947 he led his own sextet at Cafe Society (Downtown), N.Y. From September 1949-June 1950 he made his first European tour, leading his band in France. During the early 1950s, he had long spells with Joe Bushkin Quartet, worked with Tony Parenti, and led a band on tours with Jimmy Rushing. He returned to Europe in 1953, working mainly with Mezz Mezzrow. Throughout the 1950s he achieved considerable success with his own specially formed recording groups.

He appeared with Benny Goodman in The Benny Goodman Story, and played with Goodman in N.Y in 1957; went to Brussels in summer 1958 to work with Sidney Bechet at the World's Fair Concerts. He toured Europe early in 1959; joined Eddie Condon's Band; during the 1960s he played for Condon on several occasions, including a tour of the Far East in the spring of 1964. He toured with Jimmy Rushing in summer of 1962, and worked with Peanuts Hucko early in 1964.

During the 1960s Buck made annual tours of Europe and was featured at major jazz festivals throughout the U.S. After appearing at the New Orleans Jazz Fest in June 1969, Buck was temporarily absent from music while he underwent lip surgery. He played dates in N.Y, Washington, and Cleveland (spring 1970), then had hernia operations that put him out of commission until late 1971. He made a State Department tour of the Middle East (1977) and toured France (spring 1978). He retired from trumpet playing during the!970s but continued to work as an arranger and lecturer in jazz up to his death. - Born at Parsons, Kans., Nov. 12, 1911.

in 1994 - Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim dies at age 67. Brazilian composer singer, pianist, guitarist and arranger; a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, he is acknowledged as one of the most influential popular composers of the 20th century. His songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within Brazil and internationally. He acquired international fame with the release of the Grammy Award-winning album Getz/Gilberto, featuring his international hit "The Girl from Ipanema" sung by Astrud Gilberto. Notable performers of his songs include Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Toninho Horta, Andy Williams, Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Sting, Diana Krall, Claudine Longet, Carlos Santana and George Michael.

in 1995 - Courtney Love appeared on the ABC TV show '10 Most Fascinating People', telling the presenter that she wished she had done 'eight thousand million things differently' to have prevented the death of her husband Kurt Cobain.

in 1999 - 1960's singer Heinz was given a formal caution by magistrates in Southampton for playing music to loud in his flat. The singer who scored 4 Top 40 singles in the 60's is now wheelchair bound.

in 2000 - A plaque to commemorate the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death was unveiled outside his childhood home in Liverpool.

in 2000 - Sting joined the ranks of Tinseltown's greatest when his star was unveiled on the celebrated Walk Of Fame in Hollywood.

in 2003 - Eminem scored his fourth UK No.1 single with 'Loose Yourself.'

in 2003 - BPI figures showed that the UK sales of seven-inch singles had increased by 84% on the previous year. The report claimed that bands such as The Darkness, The Strokes and The White Stripes had boosted sales by releasing special limited edition seven-inch records.

in 2003 - Ruben Gonzalez dies at age 84. Cuban pianist; in 1940, he moved to Havana, where he played in the charangas of Paulina Álvarez and Paulín, with Arsenio Rodríguez, Kubavana and Senén Suárez and in the big bands Siboney and Riverside. In 1943, he released his first recording, together with Arsenio Rodríguez. In the early 1960s he became the pianist for the Orquesta de Enrique Jorrín, and would continue to play for him for the next 25 years. He started a second career in 1996 under Ry Cooder's wing, releasing the solo album "Introducing ... Rubén González". The next year, Ry Cooder produced the Grammy winning "Buena Vista Social Club", featuring Ruben González. He recorded and released his last album "Chanchullo" in 2000.

in 2004 - Dimebag Darrell ( Darrell Abbott) dies at age 25. American guitarist. Best known as a founding member of the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan, he also performed in the country music band Rebel Meets Rebel. He frequently appeared in guitar magazines and in readers' polls, where he was often included in the top ten metal guitarist spots. In addition, he wrote a Guitar World magazine column, which has been compiled in the book Riffer Madness. (killed when a man stormed the stage during a gig at the Alrosa Villa Club in Columbus. Nathan Gale, aged 25, began firing at the band and crowd, killing 5 people who was then shot and killed by a police officer who arrived shortly after the first shots were fired.).

in 2006 - Martha Tilton dies at age 91. US singer best-known for her 1939 recording of "And the Angels Sing" with Benny Goodman. She was sometimes introduced as The Liltin' Miss Tilton. While attending Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, she was singing on a small radio station when she was heard by an agent who signed her and began booking her with larger stations. She then dropped out of school to join Hal Grayson's band, before joining The Benny Goodman Band. She was one of the first artists to record for Capitol Records in 1942, among her biggest hits as a solo artist were "I'll Walk Alone"; "I Should Care" and "A Stranger in Town"; and three in 1947: "How Are Things in Glocca Morra"; "That's My Desire"; and "I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder". She also worked on radio and in films including Sunny, Swing Hostess, Crime, Inc., and The Benny Goodman Story. Her last film appearance was as the band vocalist in the TV movie Queen of the Stardust Ballroom in 1975.

in 2009 - Su Cruickshank dies at age 63. Australian jazz singer, writer, comedian, actor and entertainer, known as the 'Diva on the Hill' and 'The Queen of Jazz'; back in the 60's Su spent some time in the UK, where she sang in the jazz joints of London, after which she returned home to Newcastle, NSW, Australia, where she started singing at The Orient Hotel, and joined the Hunter Valley Theatre Company. Since 1979 her performances were many and varied, spanning the gamut of the performing arts from variety shows, jazz concerts and comedy to film, theatre, radio and television. One of her early successes and best-known film roles was as the mother of Yahoo Serious in Young Einstein. She also starred on the ABC's drama GP, was a regular guest on The Bert Newton Show and Midday with Ray Martin, and Su also hosted her own interview show in 1995 and 1996. For many years she hosted the Midsummer Festival of Jazz at Sydney's Domain for the Festival of Sydney.

in 2009 - Luis Días dies at age 57. Dominican singer-songwriter-composer, guitarist; he began as a guitarist and singer in the band Convite, a band on a mission to rescue a variety of rhythms found in the island from obscurity. They had notable performances at "El Festival Internacional de la Nueva Canción "Siete Días con el Pueblo"/International Festival of the New Song "Seven Days with the People") in Santo Domingo, 1974, in which Luis' composition "Obrero Acepta Mi Mano"/Laborer, Accept My Hand, was named as the official theme song, and was afterwards recorded by different protest song bands. After "Convite" broke up in 1978, he formed another band named "Madora", this new experiment sought a fusion between jazz and Antillean folklore. Between 1980 and 1982, Luis traveled to New York City, where he focused on teaching workshops about traditional Dominican music at the American Museum of Natural History. During this time he was deeply influenced by jazz and punk culture. In 1982 he founded his band Transporte Urbano they would pour a wide variety of their musical influences, from Bachata to heavy metal, fusions of rock, reggae, jazz and blues with more than 40 ethnic rhythms. Among the many awards he has received are Lyricist of the Year (Casandra Awards, 1989) and Composer of the Year (Casandra Awards, 1990). After several years of performances in the Caribbean region, the United States and Sth America, and after touring to Paris, Marseille, Moscow, Leningrad, Madrid, Tenerife, Barcelona, and Lisbon, in 1991 he returned to New York, where he would continue his intense work surrounding culture and ethnic studies.

in 2011 - Alan Styles dies at age 75. British Pink Floyd roadie born in Cambridge; he was subject of Pink Floyd's song "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", which is a three-part instrumental track from the 1970 Pink Floyd album Atom Heart Mother. He also appears on the back cover of Floyd's 1969 album Ummagumma. Bptm 1936.

in 2011 - Minoru Miki dies at age 81. Japanese composer and artistic director born in Tokushima, particularly known for his promotional activities in favor of Japanese, Chinese and Korean traditional instruments and performers. In 1964 he founded the Nihon Ongaku Shudan aka Ensemble Nipponia, for which he has composed extensively. He composed his first opera, Shunkinsho, based on a Tanizaki novel, in 1975. Interest by members of the English Music Theatre Company in Japanese traditional music led to contacts with Minoru which resulted in the commission of Ada, An Actor's Revenge, to an English libretto by James Kirkup, which premiered in London in 1979. During this period Miki developed a relationship with theatre and opera director Colin Graham that was to last until the latter's death in 2007. Born March 16th 1930.

in 2011 - Dick Sims dies at age 60, American keyboardist with Eric Clapton, Bob Seger. (cancer).
Sims, a native of Tulsa, OK, formed the Tulsa County Band with drummer Jamie Oldaker and bassist Carl Radle. Together, they helped develop the country-rock hybrid that became known as the "Tulsa sound." Introduced to Clapton through Radle, the threesome first backed the guitarist on his 1974 album 461 Ocean Boulevard. Though it was a collaborative effort, Sims told Tulsa People in 2010, "they weren't going to name it 'Eric Clapton and Tulsa County,' because Eric was already a solo act." The band stayed on as Clapton's backers for nine years, recording on several albums, including the classic Slowhand.
Sims, who played on Bob Seger's album Back in '72 with Oldaker, went on to play his customized Hammond B-3 organ with many other acts, including J.J. Cale, Peter Tosh and Vince Gill. After a 10-year hiatus from music, he released his only solo album, Within Arm's Reach, in 2008. Clapton dedicated his December 10th show in Tokyo to his late friend.

in 2011 - Dan "Bee" Spears dies at age 62.
Dan "Bee" Spears, played bass on the road with Willie Nelson for more than 40 year and appeared on many of his classic albums. Spears slipped and fell after stepping out of his motor home in Nashville, according to his friend Dee Pearce. He was found dead, due to exposure.
Spears grew up in a musical family outside San Antonio, Texas. Nelson hired Spears in 1968 when he was only 19 years old after Nelson's previous bassist David Zetter was drafted. "I happened to be there when the guys were talking about finding a replacement," Spears once said. "One of the guys said, 'Hell, let's hire Bee. He doesn't play worth a crap, but we can teach him what to play, and he won't come in with any preconceived bullshit!''"
Spears played on key Nelson albums including The Troublemaker, Shotgun Willie, and Phases and Stages, The Red Headed Stranger and Stardust and provided a solid backbone to Nelson's offbeat phrasing and guitar acrobatics during live shows. "Willie is all over the place with his vocal phrasing," Spears said. "He'll take you up a creek and dump you in a minute. My main role in the band is to make sure he knows where the 'one' is, so he can come back to it." Spears also toured with country artists including Waylon Jennings and Guy Clark. - Born August 11th 1949.8 December
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in 1549 - Costanzo Antegnati, Italian organist, organ builder, and composer, is baptized at Brescia. He was born into a family of organ builders. In 1584 he became organist at Brescia Cathedral. He supervised the building of more than 140 organs and published the valuable treatise L'arte organica (Brescia, 1608; ed. in the Corpus of Early Keyboard Music, IX, 1965), which contains information on tuning and registration. He publ. masses, motets, Psalms, canzoni, and madrigals in Venice (1571-1608). - Died at Brescia, Nov. 14,1624.

in 1796 - Prudent-Louis Aubery du Boulley, French composer and teacher, is born at Verneuil, Eure. He studied at the Paris Cons, with Momigy, Mehul, and Cherubini, and then was active as a teacher in Verneuil. He wrote many military band pieces and much chamber music, some of the latter utilizing guitar. He publ. a guitar method and the textbook Grammaire musicale (Paris, 1830). - Died at Verneuil, Eure, Jan. 28, 1869.

in 1814 - Jose Angel Lamas composer, dies at 39.
in 1827 - Francois Leonard Rouwyzer composer, dies at 90.
in 1836 - Michael (Mikhael) Glinka, Premiers A Life for the Czar, in St. Petersburg.
in 1837 - French composer Charles Emile Waldteufel was born in Strasbourg, France.
in 1842 - Michael (Mikhael) Glinka, premiers Ruslan and Ludmilla, in St. Petersburg.

in 1850 - Emma Abbott, American soprano, is born at Chicago. She was a pupil of her father, a singer and music teacher. After vocal training from Achille Errani in N.Y., she sang with Chapin's choir there (1870-72). She then pursued vocal studies in Milan with Sangiovanni and in Paris with Marchesi, Wartel, and Delle Sedie. On May 2,1876, she made her professional debut as Maria in La Fille du regiment at London's Covent Garden. On Feb. 8, 1877, she made her U.S. debut in the same role in N.Y. From 1878 she toured with her own company in the U.S. giving performances of operas and operettas in English. She made a habit of interpolating hymns into her performances of operas by Bellini and Donizetti as a specialty. - Died at Salt Lake City, Jan. 5, 1891.

in 1854 - Pekka Hannikainen composer is born. Hannikainen was a Finnish musical composer and the head of a famous Finnish musical family. He was the first conductor of the Finnish students' choir, the Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat, 1882-1885. From 1887-1891, he was the editor of the first Finnish musical paper, Säveleitä. He was a composer of songs and choruses, and lived at Helsinki. His children were the pianist Ilmari Hannikainen , the composer Väinö Hannikainen, and the cellist Tauno Hannikainen

in 1859 - Algernon (Bennet Langton) Ashton, English composer, is born at Durham. He studied with Reinecke and Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatory (1875-79) and Raff in Frankfurt am Main (1880), and then taught piano at the Royal College of Music in London (1885-1910). His works followed mainly along conventional German lines and included 5 symphonies, a Piano Concerto, a Violin Concerto, much chamber music, many piano pieces, organ works, choral music, and numerous songs. Although he failed to receive much recognition as a composer, he acquired a certain notoriety by his curious letters in the English press, many of which were published in his volumes. Truth, Wit and Wisdom (London, 1904) and More Truth, Wit and Wisdom (London, 1905). - Died at London, April 10,1937.

in 1913 - Elie (Miriam) Delaborde, (ne Elie Miriam), eccentric French pianist, pedagogue, and composer, dies at Paris. Though no official documents exist to authenticate the claim, evidence is substantial that he was the natural son of Charles-Valentin Alkan, his teacher, and Una Eraim Miriam, a lady of means. He also studied with Moscheles and Henselt, and subsequently made successful tours of England, Germany, and Russia. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, he fled with 121 parrots and cockatoos (later also kept 2 apes, named Isidore and Sara, in his apartment) to London, where he introduced some of his father's works for piano with pedalier. In 1873 he was appointed profesor of piano at the Paris Conservatory, numbering among his students Olga Sarnaroff. He was reputed to have had an affair with Bizet's wife, which was substantiated by the announcement of their marriage shortly following Bizet's death. Indeed, he was a close friend of Bizet, having been his swimming companion in the Seine when Bizet caught his fatal illness. He wrote an opera-comique, La Reine dori, an overture, Aitila, a Piano Quintet, 12 Preludes, Etudes, and Fantaisies for Piano, and a number of songs. - born at Paris, Feb. 8, 1839.

in 1915 - Dame (Olga Maria) Elisabeth (Friederike) Schwarzkopf, celebrated German-born English soprano, is born at Jarotschin, near Posen.

She studied with Lula Mysz-Gmeiner at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik. She made her operatic debut as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal at the Berlin Stadtische Oper (April 17, 1938), and then studied with Maria Ivogiin while continuing on its roster, appearing in more important roles from 1941. In 1942 she made her debut as a lieder artist in Vienna, and also sang for the first time at the State Opera there as Zerbinetta, remaining on its roster until the Nazis closed the theater in 1944.

Having registered as a member of the German Nazi Party in 1940, Schwarzkopf had to be de-Nazified by the Allies after the end of World War II. In 1946 she rejoined the Vienna State Opera and appeared as Donna Elvira during its visit to London's Covent Garden in 1947; subsequently sang at Covent Garden regularly until 1951. In 1947 she made her first appearance at the Salzburg Festival as Susanna; also sang regularly at Milan's La Scala (1948-63).

Furtwangler invited her to sing in his performance of the Beethoven 9th Sym. at the reopening celebrations of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951. She then created the role of Anne Trulove in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in Venice on Sept. 11,1951. On Oct. 25,1953, she gave her first recital at N.Y/s Carnegie Hall; made her U.S. operatic debut as the Marschallin with the San Francisco Opera on Sept. 20,1955. On Oct. 13, 1964, she made her belated Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. in the same role, continuing on its roster until 1966.

In 1975 she made a farewell tour of the U.S. as a concert singer. She married Walter Legge in 1953 and became a naturalized British subject. She ed. his memoir, On and Off the Record (N.Y, 1982; second ed., 1988). In 1992 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In addition to her acclaimed Mozart and Strauss roles, she was also admired in Viennese operetta. As an interpreter of lieder, she was incomparable.

in 1931 - Donald(son Toussaint L'ouverture, II)Byrd, jazz-funk trumpeter, flugelhomist, educator, is born at Detroit. He studied at Wayne State University in Detroit (B.M., 1954) and at the Manhattan School of Music (M.A., Music Education); he then studied composition with Boulanger in Paris (1962-63). Byrd came to fame with Art Blakey and Horace Silver's hard bop bands during the 1950s, and recorded extensively for the Blue Note, Savoy, and Prestige labels. He also worked with Red Garland, Jackie McLean, Max Roach, and Sonny Rollins. He teamed up with Pepper Adams to co-lead a group (1958-61), which Herbie Hancock joined in 1961.

In 1962 Byrd began experiencing problems with his teeth and at the same time, began work on streamlining and simplifying his style. He also concentrated on beauty of tone and on writing challenging harmonic studies such as "Fly Little Bird Fly." He served on the faculties of Rutgers University, the Hampton Institute, Howard University, and N.C. Central University. Byrd moved toward a more funk-based sound and launched the Blackbyrds in 1973, a band that consisted of students at Howard Univ. Their aim was to experiment with Byrd's musical ideas, as a way of complementing and enhancing their studies. In 1973 Byrd recorded the Black Byrd album, a huge seller whose single "Walking in Rhythm" was among the first jazz-funk hits; it set the trend for their other such releases.

Success continued with the release of Street Lady, which further helped lay the foundation of contemporary dance. Consequently, Byrd's work has experienced a great resurgence in popularity during the 1990s; his work is the most sampled of all the Blue Note artists. Byrd also guested on Guru's Jazzmatazz album and tour (1993). He has performed exclusively with a mute since the 1980s. He currently teaches at Del. State University.

in 1950 - Denis Brott, Canadian cellist and teacher, son of Alexander and brother of Boris Brott, is born at Montreal. He studied with Walter Joachim at the Montreal Conservatory (1959-67), Nelsova in Aspen (1963-68), Starker at Ind. University (1968-71), and Piatigorsky at the University of Southern Calif, in Los Angeles (1971-75); he then com- pleted his training with Rose in N.Y., Gendron in Paris, and Navarra in Siena. In 1967 he won first prize at the Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, D.C.; then placed first in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Concours that same year, which led to his debut with that orchestra in the Dvorak Concerto (1967). During his seasons at the Marlboro (Vt.) Festival (1972-75), he attended Casal's master classes. He toured widely as a soloist in North America and Europe; from 1980 to 1989 he was a member of the Orford String Quartet. He taught at the University of N.C. (1975-77), the Royal Conservatory, of Music of Toronto (from 1978), the University of Toronto (1980-89), and the Montreal Conservatory (from 1989).

in 1961 - The Beatles played at the Palais Ballroom in Aldershot to a crowd of just 18 people. The date had not been advertised, owing to the local newspaper's refusal to accept the promoter's cheque. After the show The Beatles became rowdy, getting themselves ordered out of town by the local police.

in 1963 - Leonard Bernstein, Symphony no. 3 “Khaddish”, in Tel Aviv.
in 1964 - Paul Landers (German rhythm guitarist; Rammstein) is born
in 1966 - The Beatles album 'A Collection Of Beatles Oldies' was released in the UK.
in 1966 - Yury Alexandrovich Shaporin composer, dies at 79.

in 1967 - Joshua Bell, talented American violinist, is born at Bloomington, Ind. He first studied violin with Mimi Zweig, making his debut as a soloist with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra in 1975 at the age of seven. He subsequently studied with Gingold at the Indiana University School of Music, and also took summer courses with Galamian and a masterclass with Szeryng. He won the grand prize in the first annual Seventeen Magazine/ General Motors National Concerto Competition in Rochester, N.Y., which led to his appearance as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti on Sept. 24, 1982. Bell was the youngest soloist ever to appear with it at a subscription concert. In 1985 he made his Carnegie Hall debut in N.Y. as soloist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, and then toured Europe with them. In 1987 he was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant. In subsequent years, Bell appeared as a soloist with principal world orchestras, and also gave solo recitals and played in chamber music settings. On Sept. 29, 1993, he was soloist in the premiere of Nicholas Maw's Violin Concerto with Roger Norrington and the Orch. of St. Luke's in N.Y. Bell played the solos in the soundtrack for the film The Red Violin (1999), the music by John Corigliano.

in 1967 - Isang Yun, premiers The widow of the Butterfly, in Bonn.

in 1967 - The Doors appeared at the New Haven Arena, New Haven, Connecticut. Before the show a policeman found singer Jim Morrison making out with an 18 year-old girl in a backstage shower and after an argument the policeman sprays mace in Morrison’s face. Once on stage Morrison tells the story of the backstage episode and starts taunting the police who drag him off the stage and arrest him. The crowd riots leaving the venue in disarray and many are arrested. Later over 100 protestors gathered at the police station in demonstration and more arrests were made.

in 1967 - Thomas Flowers (US vocalist; Oleander) is born.

in 1968 - Free appeared at the Marquee Club in London England. Other acts appearing at the club this month included Joe Cocker, The Who and Led Zeppelin.